NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T De­fence Force in­form strik­er Kevin Moli­no and de­fend­er Ja­mal Jack of Club San­do have both re­joined T&T “So­ca War­riors” coach Dwight Yorke’s squad ahead of to­mor­row’s re­turn-leg match in the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup Pre­lim­i­nary Round at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main Cou­va from 7 pm.

The ‘So­ca War­riors’ will take a 2-1 lead in­to the match af­ter a come-from-be­hind win on Fri­day at the Es­ta­dio An­to­nio Maceo in San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba.

The host took the lead in the sixth minute when Yas­niel Matos fired past goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith in the sixth minute with a left-foot­ed shot in­side the box to cap­i­talise on an as­sist from Maikel Reyes.

How­ev­er, Isa­iah Lee, 25, equalised for the So­ca War­riors in the 20th with his first se­nior na­tion­al team goal, while the win­ner came eight min­utes in­to the sec­ond half through 25-year-old Cana­da-born mid­field­er Stef­fen Yeates, his first goal for T&T in six ap­pear­ances.

How­ev­er, for last Fri­day’s en­counter, Moli­no and Jack, along with Rus­sia-based strik­er Levi Gar­cia of Spar­tak Moscow, had to with­draw from the orig­i­nal 26-man squad named by Yorke for var­i­ous rea­sons.

Gar­cia, who re­cent­ly made the move to Spar­tak Moscow from Greece’s AEK Athens and last donned the na­tion­al colours in a 2-2 draw at home with Grena­da in a CON­CA­CAF World Cup qual­i­fi­er last June, with­drew from the team due to in­jury, while Jack missed the match af­ter not re­ceiv­ing his US visa on time to take part in a prepa­ra­tion camp in the USA, and Moli­no was for rea­sons undis­closed.

How­ev­er, at the team’s train­ing ses­sion at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, yes­ter­day both Jack and Moli­no were present along with Isa­iah Lee of La Hor­quet­ta Rangers and Toron­to FC’s Tyrese Spicer, who were both sub­sti­tut­ed in Fri­day’s come-from-be­hind win for what coach Yorke de­scribed as pre­cau­tion­ary mea­sures af­ter pick­ing up slight knocks to the head.

Spicer, the top pick in the MLS Su­per­Draft a year ago, was re­placed at the half-time in­ter­val by Scot­land-based An­dre Ray­mond, while Lee made way for Brent Sam in the 57th minute.

Fri­day’s win was the first for new T&T coach Yorke af­ter two de­feats and one draw re­sult from his first three match­es in charge, all in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies, since tak­ing charge fol­low­ing the part­ing of ways with the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and for­mer coach An­gus Eve.

Last De­cem­ber, Yorke, 53, in his de­but match as head coach of the So­ca War­riors, saw his team fall to a 3-1 loss while they were al­so beat­en 1-0 by host Ja­maica on Feb­ru­ary 6, be­fore both teams played to a 1-1 draw three days lat­er, al­so in Ja­maica.

Last year, the So­ca War­riors al­so faced Cu­ba in their 2024/25 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A cam­paign, draw­ing the first match on the road 2-2 on Oc­to­ber 10 be­fore earn­ing a 3-1 win at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, To­ba­go, on Oc­to­ber 14 as they gained their place in Na­tions League A for an­oth­er cy­cle.

The match­es in the pre­lim­i­nary round of the Gold Cup fea­ture the four 2024/25 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League quar­ter­fi­nal losers, the third and fourth-placed teams from the 2024/25 Na­tions League A cy­cle, the top two Na­tions League B run­ners-up, and the four Na­tions League play-in win­ners.

The pre­lim­i­nary re­sults were de­ter­mined via CON­CA­CAF’s rank­ings of the 14 par­tic­i­pat­ing teams af­ter the con­clu­sion of FI­FA’s No­vem­ber win­dow. The So­ca War­riors are ranked fifth, with Cos­ta Ri­ca, Ja­maica, Hon­duras, and Guatemala ahead of them. Cu­ba is ranked tenth.

The four 2024/25 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League semi­fi­nal­ists – Cana­da, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma and the US – will go di­rect­ly in­to the 2025 Gold Cup group stage for the June 14-Ju­ly 6 tour­na­ment.

In the oth­er 2025 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nary matchups on Fri­day, Cos­ta Ri­ca whipped host Be­lize 7-0, Ja­maica drew away to St Vin­cent and the Grenadines 1-1, Hon­duras out­gunned host Bermu­da 5-3, Guyana won 3-2 over Guatemala, Suri­name pipped Mar­tinique 1-0 and Guade­loupe slipped past Nicaragua by a sim­i­lar 1-0 mar­gin.

So far, Haiti, El Sal­vador, Cu­ra­cao, the USA, Pana­ma, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Cana­da, Mex­i­co and guest team Sau­di Ara­bia are the con­firmed teams in the main draw of this year’s Gold Cup, which be­gins on June 14 and ends on Ju­ly 6.

Mex­i­co is the de­fend­ing cham­pi­on, hav­ing won its record-ex­tend­ing ninth ti­tle in 2023 af­ter de­feat­ing Pana­ma 1–0 in the fi­nal on Ju­ly 16 at SoFi Sta­di­um in In­gle­wood, Cal­i­for­nia, USA.

T&T 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), Ja­mal Jack (Club San­do FC), An­dre Ray­mond (Dun­fermline Ath­let­ic Scot­land), Alvin Jones (De­porti­vo Re­al So­ciedad/Hon­duras), Aubrey David (CSD Mu­nic­i­pal/Hon­duras).

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: Kevin Moli­no (De­fence Force), Tyrese Spicer (Toron­to FC/Cana­da), Dan­taye Gilbert/Hol­land), Re­al Gill (Hun­stville City FC/USA), Brent Sam (De­fence Force), Isa­iah Gar­cia (De­fence Force).