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Friday, July 11, 2025

Warriors get final test against China

by

20160602

Trinidad and To­ba­go's Se­nior Men will be look­ing to leave a last­ing im­pres­sion in Chi­na when they face off with that coun­try's Na­tion­al Se­nior Team in a high­ly billed in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly at the Qin­huang­dao Olympic Sports Cen­ter in Qin­huang­dao at 7:30am TT time on Fri­day.

The game, which will be aired live on Flow Sports Chan­nel 95, is serv­ing as a build up for both teams for their 2018 Russ­ian World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The Chi­nese team is ranked 81st while T&T slipped eleven spots to 64 on the lat­est Fi­fa rank­ings re­leased to­day fol­low­ing their two de­feats to Uruguay and Pe­ru.

T&T head coach Stephen Hart's main in­ter­est is the match it­self and he is keen to see how his play­ers match up to their ris­ing op­po­nents to close of the tour spon­sored by Shang­hai Con­struc­tion Group Caribbean Lim­it­ed.

'It's not go­ing to be an easy game by any means. We all know what the Chi­nese team is ca­pa­ble of. They've been to a World Cup be­fore and they are com­ing off a very good 2-0 win over Qatar plus they are at home where they are ex­pect­ed to be back by a very pas­sion­ate home crowd," Hart told TTFA Me­dia.

"But this is why we are here, to get the best pos­si­ble match out of them and see how it helps us in our prepa­ra­tions for up­com­ing World Cup qual­i­fiers. The main thing for me will be to see how our play­ers set­tle and adapt to the con­di­tions and the type of af­fair we will face. For a lot of the play­ers it's a new ex­pe­ri­ence trav­el­ing this far and hav­ing to play a team like Chi­na. This augers well for us.

"About the game it­self, I ex­pect they will be go­ing for a vic­to­ry and we will need to en­sure we are pre­cise and con­cen­trat­ing for the most part. A good re­sult is al­ways the aim and it is some­thing that will be be­yond us in this en­counter," Hart added.Ex­pe­ri­enced Dan­ish-based de­fend­er Radan­fah Abu Bakr, who ac­com­pa­nied Hart at the pre-game press con­fer­ence on Thurs­day, said the "War­riors" will not be up for the test.

"We've come a long way for the game so I think the guys will be look­ing to put every­thing out on the field of play and try to end this tour on a pos­i­tive note. The mood is quite good, every­one is ready for the chal­lenge and we're quite ex­cit­ed to see what the game brings in terms of at­mos­phere and chal­lenges from the Chi­na team," he added.

Team man­ag­er William Wal­lace al­so thanked the Chi­nese Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion and the Shang­hai Group for host­ing the team.

"Aside from the long trav­el, the rest of this tour has been good and has served the team well in its prepa­ra­tions for up­com­ing match­es. We'd like thank the Chi­nese FA and Shang­hai Con­struc­tion for all their ef­forts in mak­ing the stay a pleas­ing and ben­e­fi­cial one for the team," Wal­lace said.

Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion mid­field­er Hugh­tun Hec­tor and Mex­i­can-based de­fend­er Yohance Mar­shall have both re­cov­ered from in­juries and are el­i­gi­ble for se­lec­tion.

T&T will look to the at­tack­ing duo of Shah­don Win­ches­ter and Jo­mal Williams who is com­ing off his maid­en goalscor­ing per­for­mance in the 3-1 loss to Uruguay. The workrate of An­dre Bou­caud in the mid­dle in the ab­sence of Khaleem Hy­land, will al­so be cru­cial for T&T along with the de­fen­sive ef­forts of Daneil Cyrus and Aubrey David.

Dutch-based winger Levi Gar­cia is al­so miss­ing due to club com­mit­ments. Chi­na has in­clud­ed 19-year old for­ward Zhang Yun­ing in its squad for the match, Yun­ing plays for Dutch club Vitesse Arn­hem. Chi­na-based Gao Lin who has 18 goals in 86 ap­pear­ances is ex­pect­ed to fea­ture along­side fel­low strik­er Yang Xu who has 22 goals from 44 match­es.

T&T plays Guatemala in its next World Cup qual­i­fi­er on Sep­tem­ber 2 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um while Chi­na faces South Ko­rea a day ear­li­er.


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