PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) — Trinidad and Tobago’s National Under-20 women’s team has been showered with praises after placing fourth in the 2014 CONCACAF Under-20 Women’s Championship in the Cayman Islands on Sunday.

President of the Republic, Anthony Carmona and Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) president Raymond Tim Kee have led tributes for an outfit that was on the brink of becoming the first team to represent the Caribbean at the FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup.

The Trinidadians were five minutes away from securing a 3-2 win against Costa Rica when an equaliser forced them into extra time which the Central Americans exploited to win 7-3.

President Carmona said the Under-20 women “displayed grit and determination to become real contenders in the Cayman Islands qualification tournament.

“I can tell you I felt a great sense of national pride and joy when I saw how those young women fought on behalf of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago,” Carmona said during the launch of a football programme.

The T&T Soca Princesses led 3-1 at the half and seemed on course towards creating history after two first-half goals from captain Anique Walker.

Tim Kee said the women played hard and the defeat will give an indicator to the technical staff and coaches about what needs to be done to ensure the team remains competitive in the future.

“From what I saw yesterday, remember we led 3-1 at half-time, I get the impression that they were leg-weary, because it was a hectic schedule and that will of course point our technical staff in a direction to correct things like that,” he said.

“I know some initiatives have been taken in the past about fitness and the level of preparedness that is necessary for those types of games and I know that we made a decision to make it policy, so you would not see a recurrence of that moving forward, but those things do not happen overnight.”

The United States recorded a 4-0 win over Mexico on Sunday to capture the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship for a third straight time.

Both teams already had qualified for the FIFA U-20 World Cup and will be joined by Costa Rica for the event to be hosted in Canada this summer.