Nigel Si­mon

T&T So­ca War­riors be­gin their jour­ney for a spot at the 2014 Brazil Fi­fa World Cup Fi­nals when they host min­nows, Bermu­da in their Con­ca­caf sec­ond round Group B qual­i­fi­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, from 4 pm to­day. Led by Stoke City's Ken­wyne Jones, T&T will start the match as firm favourites, de­spite play­ing just one in­ter­na­tion­al match since last No­vem­ber, a 3–0 win over lit­tle fan­cied In­dia, ear­li­er this month. Apart from meet­ing at the same stage of the pre­vi­ous World Cup cam­paign, the 88th ranked T&T and Bermu­da have met 11 times, with the So­ca War­riors hold­ing the edge, five wins to three loss­es and two drawn re­sults, and Jones and com­pa­ny will be ea­ger to add to its num­ber of wins.

How­ev­er, Jones and his team-mates will be wise not to take the world 185th ranked Bermu­dans, nick­named the "Gombey War­riors", light­ly as they showed in the past they are ca­pa­ble of caus­ing an up­set.

Dur­ing T&T's failed 2010 South Africa World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign, Bermu­da, af­ter strug­gling to see off the Cay­man Is­lands in round one of qual­i­fy­ing, took on T&T and won the first-leg 2–1, led by two goals from John Bar­ry Nusum, be­fore Stern John and Dar­ryl Roberts net­ted in the away leg for T&T to come away with a 3–2 ag­gre­gate tri­umph and avoid the up­set. The 34-year-old John and 27-year-old Roberts who both scored in the win over In­dia are like­ly to com­pete for a start­ing role along­side Jones and the So­ca War­riors cap­tain was anx­ious­ly look­ing ahead to the match. The 26-year-old Jones, who has en­joyed a great start to the sea­son for his Pre­mier­ship club said: "I am look­ing for­ward to it (be­ing cap­tain). It's a new day for my­self. It's a new day for the coun­try, and again it's a new round of qual­i­fi­ca­tion. "So hope­ful­ly with the ex­pe­ri­ence that I have, and that of the oth­er play­ers, we can come to­geth­er and im­pose it on the rest of the teams, and lead the coun­try to great­ness."

Jones de­scribed his lead role as a proud mo­ment. "It's some­thing a play­er dreams of and I am hap­py."

He said dur­ing the past week the team was prepar­ing. "To­day was the last day and things are look­ing good. Hope­ful­ly to­mor­row (to­day) when we come out ,we could im­pose our­selves and go for­ward and win the game." While Bermu­da may not be con­sid­ered a force, Jones was not tak­ing them for grant­ed. "Ir­re­gard­less of the op­po­si­tion, it is a big oc­ca­sion see­ing that it is a first step in the World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The coun­try wants us to do well, so of course there will be a bit of ner­vous­ness. I think from the time the whis­tle blows, every­one should be able to get in­to their stride." Jones al­so spoke of his lack of goals for T&T which has seen him on­ly net on four oc­ca­sions from 45 ap­pear­ances. "I think the last cam­paign I was the on­ly per­son to blame. You know that's the past. That's a part of foot­ball life. We are hop­ing to do bet­ter and get the job done. My job is to go out there and lead the team and score goals and try to lead the coun­try to the World Cup." With re­gards to the com­po­si­tion of the team, Jones said it has a good mix. "We are in a stage where we are plan­ning for the fu­ture, not just 2014, but the fu­ture of T&T. So, hope­ful­ly, with what we have go­ing on now, we could press for­ward and do great things."

Bermu­da coach op­ti­mistic

De­varr Boyles, coach of the Bermu­da squad was very op­ti­mistic his team can cause an­oth­er up­set against T&T. The Bermu­dans, who ar­rived in T&T from Fort Laud­erdale, USA where they held a live-in camp, al­so trained at the match venue yes­ter­day. "We are very op­ti­mistic. We know there are go­ing to be chal­lenges but we're putting a team on the field that we know can cope, and with cop­ing we'll see where that takes us," said Boyles. How­ev­er the vis­i­tors will have to deal with the ab­sence of strik­er John Bar­ry Nusum, who scored both goals in the win ver­sus T&T in the pre­vi­ous cam­paign due to work com­mit­ments but speedy for­mer MLS stand­out winger Khano Smith, Nah­ki Wells and Fred­dy Hall are in the team. Tick­ets for the match are on sale at all Ken­ny's Sports Out­lets and All Sport Pro­mo­tions, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James.

Tick­ets are priced at $200 (cov­ered) and $100 (un­cov­ered). Chil­dren un­der ten will be al­lowed free ad­mis­sion.

Group B match­es

NB: Home team men­tioned first

Sep­tem­ber 2: T&T vs Bermu­da

Sep­tem­ber 6: Bar­ba­dos vs T&T

Oc­to­ber 7: Bermu­da vs T&T

Oc­to­ber 11: T&T vs Bar­ba­dos

No­vem­ber 11: Guyana vs T&T

No­vem­ber 15: T&T vs Guyana

Teams

T&T: Den­sill Theobald, Stern John, Mar­vin Phillip, Seon Pow­ers, Hay­den Tin­to, Car­lyle Mitchell, Ju­ma Clarence, An­drei Pacheco, An­tho­ny Wolfe, Akeem Adams, Aki­ni Adams, An­dre Tou­s­saint, Dar­ryl Roberts, Hughton Hec­tor, Ken­wyne Jones, Car­los Ed­wards, Khaleem Hy­land, Chris Bir­chall, Keon Daniel, Julius James, Jake Thom­son, An­dre Bou­caud, An­tho­ny Warn­er, Clyde Leon, Lester Pelti­er.

Bermu­da: Fred­dy Hall, Seion Dar­rell, Ka­men Tuck­er, Roger Lee Jr, Davare Tankard, Reg­gie Lambe Thomp­son, Chris Casey, De­vaun De Graff, Nah­ki Wells, Khano Smith, Tyrell Burgess, Tahj Bell, Da­mon Ming, LaShaun Dill, Zeiko Lewis, Quadir May­nard, An­ge­lo Sim­mons, Tau­reen Man­ders, Ja­son Davis, Antwon Rus­sell, Ernest Trott, Daniel John­son.