Soca Warriors captain and Cardiff City striker Kenwyne Jones is expected to be among the returning players to the starting line-up when T&T comes up against Cuba in their final Pool A round-robin match of the 18th Caribbean Football Union Cup Finals tonight at 9 pm TT Time.The match, the second of a double-header at the St Catherine Sports Complex, Montego Bay, Jamaica, kicks off with the Stephen Hart-coached Soca Warriors, record eight-time winners, needing only a draw to reach a record 13th final.
T&T, which was beaten in the 2012 final by the Cubans in Antigua on an error by goalkeeper Jan-Michael Williams, won the crown in 1989, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1996, 1997, 1999 and 2001, the last on home soil, while it also ended second in 1991, 1998 and 2007 to be the most successful team in the competition's history.However, with only the group winner advancing to the final, coach Hart is expected to turn to Jones, the scorer of a brace in his team's opening 3�2 win over Curacao at the same venue on Tuesday night, to lead the front-line with Kevin Molino, the tournament's top scorer with three goals after he netted the winner in the opening match and followed up with a double in the 4�2 defeat of French Guiana on Thursday night to improve T&T to maximum six points and certain of a second consecutive CONCACAF Gold Cup qualification.
Cuban, meanwhile, edged Curacao 3�2 in Thursday's late match to move to second with four points after a 1�1 draw with French Guiana in its opener, and must take all three points from T&T to have a chance of defending its title.In the win over French Guiana, Hart also brought in Lester Peltier, who scored a penalty, as well as Radanfah Abu Bakr and Justin Hoyte in defence with Ataulla Guerra also coming in and scoring a scorcher to clinch victory. Defenders Carlyle Mitchell and Yohance Marshall were rested while Khaleem Hyland wore the captain's armband in his first match of the finals .
The quartet of Hughtun Hector, Aubrey David, Daneil Cyrus and Andre Boucaud retained their places and performed creditably on the night.Reflecting on the win over French Guiana, Hart was pleased about T&T's Gold Cup qualification achievement but found that T&T was still a bit uncertain when it came to closing up shop."We came here and our first objective was to get to the Gold Cup and then we would think about getting to the final and have a chance of winning it. So one piece of the puzzle is completed," Hart said."It's important because we have not played a lot of games so these games are serving us well. But we gave up one goal in the last one but not we are leaking a bit for some reason. And we gave up two goals against ten men. They scored a fantastic free kick and they had nothing to lose at that point in time. We started to drop off a bit and lost our composure a little bit. That's a concentration thing which I will work on with the team," Hart stated."But with that being said, we created a lot of chances. On another night that could have been a very good score for us. Now we will prepare for Cuba.
Looking ahead to tonight's clash with the Cubans, who has led T&T to five straight wins in the tournament dating back to the semifinal round last month in T&T, said: "Cuba are what they are... a very organised team. They know each other inside out and they play like a real team. They will be a very difficult team to play against on Saturday."T&T now joins US, Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama and El Salvador in the CONCACAF Gold Cup which takes place from July 7-26 in the US.