Ex­pe­ri­enced de­fend­er Alvin Jones is con­fi­dent the T&T "So­ca War­riors" can get over the line with a win when they face Cu­ba at 4 pm this af­ter­noon in the open­ing match of the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers at the Es­ta­dio An­to­nio Maceo in San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba.

Jones, the scor­er of that mem­o­rable goal that de­feat­ed the Unit­ed States 2-1 in a World Cup Qual­i­fi­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va in 2017, worked out with the se­nior men's na­tion­al foot­ball team at the game venue on Thurs­day af­ter a live-in camp in Mi­a­mi, Flori­da af­ford­ed them three days of prepa­ra­tion un­der na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke.

Jones, like his broth­er Jo­evin Jones, be­lieves there is good ca­ma­raderie and spir­it in the team which will be suf­fi­cient to en­sure them max­i­mum points.

“For us, we need dis­ci­pline as a group, we need en­er­gy be­cause we are play­ing in dif­fi­cult con­di­tions. It’s a turf field and the weath­er, most like­ly, would-be hot sun so we would need that en­er­gy and to­geth­er­ness to get across the line as a group,” Alvin said.

“The camp was very im­por­tant for us; a lot of new faces and it’s the first time com­ing to­geth­er as a group. We got at least three to four days with coach Yorke to go over what he wants us to show­case out there as a group.”

His broth­er Jo­evin told the me­dia at the pre-game press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day that go­ing in­to Cu­ba is nev­er easy to play.

“It’s a task at hand but that does not say that we don’t want to come and win. With­in the group of guys, the ca­ma­raderie is there, the team has a good spir­it for this game, and we are up for the chal­lenge.”

Af­ter to­day’s en­counter, the teams will clash for a sec­ond time on Tues­day (March 25) at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um and the win­ner of the tie will earn a spot in the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup to be played in the Unit­ed States and Cana­da from June 14 to Ju­ly 6.

The T&T team will be with­out the ser­vices of three key play­ers in­clud­ing mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no and strik­er Levi Gar­cia, who picked up an in­jury at his club Spar­tak Moscow, as well as de­fend­er Ja­mal Jack, who could not get his visa in time.

Yorke urged the oth­er play­ers to step up to the chal­lenge as ad­e­quate re­place­ments.

Yorke, who is ea­ger to get his first win in charge of the So­ca War­riors, af­ter los­ing to Sau­di Ara­bia 3-1 and Ja­maica 1-0, be­fore draw­ing 1-1 with the Reg­gae Boyz in the sec­ond match of a two-match in­ter­na­tion­al se­ries, said: “We come with a lot of re­spect for Cu­ba, but we come with one main in­ten­tion, to try and get a re­al­ly pos­i­tive re­sult against Cu­ba, but we know how dif­fi­cult it will be and our mind­set is to make sure that we are ready, pre­pared ful­ly, men­tal­ly as well as phys­i­cal­ly, be­cause it’s go­ing to be a tough game for us.”

T&T Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nary round squad

GOAL­KEEP­ERS:

Mar­vin Phillip (AC PoS), Den­zil Smith (AV Al­ta FC/USA), Jabari St Hillaire (De­fence Force).

DE­FEND­ERS:

Dar­nell Hospedales (Mon­tego Bay Utd/Ja­maica), Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), An­dre Ray­mond (Dun­fermline Ath­let­ic Scot­land), Alvin Jones (De­porti­vo Re­al So­ciedad/Hon­duras), Aubrey David (CSD Mu­nic­i­pal/Hon­duras), Isa­iah Gar­cia (De­fence Force).

MID­FIELD­ERS:

Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice FC), Ste­fen Yeates (York Unit­ed/Cana­da), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage/Eng­land), Natah­niel James (Port­land Heart of Pine/USA), Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Shan­non Gomez (San An­to­nio FC/USA), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids/USA), Kai­him Thomas (De­fence Force), Ajani For­tune (At­lanta Unit­ed/USA),

FOR­WARDS:

Tyrese Spicer (Toron­to FC/Cana­da), Dan­taye Gilbert/Hol­land), Re­al Gill (Hun­stville City FC/USA), Brent Sam (De­fence Force)