The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) have appointed Constantine Konstin as the interim head coach of the senior women’s national team until November 30th 2021. Konstin recently served as the National Men’s Futsal coach in May.
The surprising announcement was released on Wednesday by the governing body. Earlier in the week, the Women Warriors were set to be under the stewardship of previous assistant coach Charlie Mitchell following the resignation of then coach James Thomas after five months on the job.
The American, Konstin is the current head coach of the T&T men’s Futsal team that participated in the 2021 CONCACAF Futsal Championship in May. He will now oversee the two friendly internationals versus Panama later this month.
The CONCACAF Women Qualifiers will now begin in February 2022 instead of November. The region’s governing body have agreed that the change was made because of the challenges associated with travel into certain countries in the region due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The committee believes this decision was made in the best interests of the tournament, players, and officials.
The Women Warriors will play Panama at the Ato Boldon Stadium on 21st and 25th October. The teams will be housed at the Home of Football in a bio-secure environment with the matches being played with the approval of the Ministry of Health.
Konstin is familiar to football fraternity especially Futsal over the last few years. He coached the U-18 girls Futsal team at the 2018 Summer Youth Olympics in Argentina in 2018. He also had a stint in Poland as a coach for both Football and Futsal.
Konstin said in an interview, “I am extremely honoured to have the opportunity to be part of team T&T again as the Women’s national team interim head coach. I can’t wait to get back to T&T to be working side by side with the players and staff who already have a great foundation in place.”
Normalization Committee Chairman Robert Hadad said, “Cony (Konstin) has always been committed to T&T football and futsal development and we have been having regular discussions with him on how that may take shape headed into 2022. So, when the situation arose with James Thomas’ sudden departure, Cony kindly accepted this caretaker/interim role until November.” He concluded, “We will continue to evaluate the options available in preparation for the CONCACAF W Qualifiers in February and April 2022.”
CONCACAF Groups are as follows:
Group A: Mexico, Puerto Rico, Suriname, Antigua and Barbuda and Anguilla
Group B: Costa Rica, Guatemala, Saint Kitts and Nevis, US Virgin Islands, and Curacao
Group C: Jamaica, Dominican Republic, Bermuda, Grenada and Cayman Islands
Group D: Panama, El Salvador, Barbados, Belize and Aruba
Group E: Haiti, Cuba, Honduras, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and British Virgin Islands
Group F: Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, Nicaragua, Dominica and Turks and Caicos
