Crys­tal Palace mid­field­er Rio Car­dines will lead a team of 22 to the qual­i­fiers of the Con­ca­caf Un­der 20 Cham­pi­onships to run from Feb­ru­ary 23-27 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

The young So­ca War­riors, be­ing coached by Bri­an Haynes, will be­gin their quest in Group D against St Vin­cent and the Grenadines at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Feb­ru­ary 23, be­fore a Feb­ru­ary 25 clash with Do­mini­ca at 6 pm, fol­lowed by a face-off with Cana­da two days lat­er (Feb­ru­ary 27) will con­clude their group stage.

Car­dines is a known name for the coun­try, hav­ing been pur­sued by se­nior na­tion­al coach An­gus Eve in the past. In 2022, the Eng­lish-born play­er re­ceived his T&T pass­port that of­fi­cial­ly en­abled him to rep­re­sent the red, white, and black of T&T.

Car­dines will have at his dis­pos­al, the ser­vices of Nashville FC strik­er Tyrell Moore, mid­field­er Der­rel Gar­cia (In­ter City In­ter­na­tion­al Acad­e­my), and for­mer San Juan North Sec­ondary dan­ger­man Lar­ry Noel who now rep­re­sents the Salt Lake Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege in the Unit­ed States.

The young War­riors had a win-and-loss record against their Ja­maican coun­ter­parts in two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly en­coun­ters here in T&T, be­fore a 2-1 loss to the se­nior na­tion­al team be­fore the Car­ni­val sea­son ap­peared to have put them in a place of readi­ness.

Last week coach Haynes told the me­dia that while his team need­ed to be con­sis­tent, he was gen­er­al­ly pleased with his squad and the ef­fort they have pro­duced against the Ja­maicans.

Mean­while, Haynes, who was named the team’s head coach in No­vem­ber last year said Fri­day that he was thank­ful to the se­nior team head coach An­gus Eve the the prac­tice match­es which served as the fi­nal prepa­ra­tion for the team.

He said, “It’s al­ways good to get those kind of games. It was a very good ex­pe­ri­ence go­ing in­to what we have go­ing on for us. The game showed our de­fen­sive frail­ties and showed when teams are good on the ball, teams who know how to use space, and teams who know how to switch the point of at­tack at will, it shows that we have to get more pre­pared for it.”

GOAL­KEEP­ERS

Al­lan Pan­ton (Dar­ling­ton Soc­cer Acad­e­my), Bri­an Gafiuk (Vic­to­ria High­landers), Makaya Tay­lor (Broth­er Ry Acad­e­my)

DE­FEND­ERS

Duhrell Young (W Con­nec­tion), Lyshaun Mor­ris (Point Fortin Civic), Jaden Williams (Fa­ti­ma Col­lege), Ak­il Hen­ry (Pro Se­ries), Rus­sell Fran­cois (Trend­set­ter Hawks), Cody Coop­er (Dun­stan Williams Acad­e­my)

MID­FIELD­ERS

Levi Jones (Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege), Abay­o­mi George (Club San­do), Josi­ah Ochoa (Point Fortin Youths), Mala­cai Webb (Pre­mier SC), J’lon Matthews (Po­lice FC), Lin­dell Sween (Mar­vant Cale­do­nia), Je­re­mi­ah Cateau (South­ern Soc­cer Acad­e­my), Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace), Der­rel Gar­cia (In­ter City In­ter­na­tion­al Acad­e­my)

FOR­WARDS

Tyrell Moore (Nashville FC), Michael Chaves (Queen’s Park CC), Lar­ry Noel (Salt Lake Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege), An­dell Fras­er (Stand­by)