NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League lead­ing scor­er and for­mer na­tion­al beach soc­cer stand-out Kevon "Show­time" Wood­ley has been called up to the T&T 'So­ca War­riors' squad by coach An­gus Eve for the two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies against Guyana.

T&T and Guyana will meet on Mon­day (May 13) and Wednes­day (May 15) both at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain from 7 pm and will be us­ing the match­es as part of their prepa­ra­tions to­wards the start of the Con­ca­caf 2026 FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fiers in June.

T&T “So­ca War­riors” will open their Group B Sec­ond Round of World Cup qual­i­fiers at home to neigh­bour Grena­da on June 5 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um fol­lowed by an away clash with Ba­hamas on June 8 at the St Kitts & Nevis Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Cen­ter in Bas­seterre for their sec­ond match in the five-team round-robin se­ries to­wards the FI­FA World Cup 2026 joint­ly host­ed by the USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co.

The So­ca War­riors then com­plete their four-match sched­ule in 2025 with a home en­counter against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourite Cos­ta Ri­ca.

The 37-year-old Wood­ley has been knock­ing on the door of the se­nior na­tion­al team for some time with his ex­ploits both at the T&T Su­per League and T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League and with 16 goals to his name so far this sea­son, in­clud­ing a hat-trick in his last out­ing against Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um Point Fortin Civic, mid-week.

The Char­lot­teville, To­ba­go-born who re­joined Mor­vant Cale­do­nia in the De­cem­ber trans­fer-win­dow pre­vi­ous­ly en­joyed spells with Unit­ed Petrotrin, W Con­nec­tion, To­ba­go Unit­ed, Cale­do­nia, Club San­do, Cunu­pia Ea­gles FC, and San Juan Jabloteh and has al­so rep­re­sent­ed T&T at the Con­ca­caf Beach Soc­cer Cham­pi­onship.

The So­ca War­riors and Guyana 'Gold­en Jaguars', coached by T&T for­mer men and women coach Ja­maal Shabazz, will kick off at 7 pm on each night.

Ac­cord­ing to the Guyana News Room, a con­tin­gent of 24 play­ers, fresh off com­pet­ing in Round One of the KFC Elite League Sea­son Six de­part­ed Guyana yes­ter­day for Port-of-Spain and the in­ter­na­tion­al fix­tures will pro­vide a chance for play­ers to shine un­der the watch­ful eye of Shabazz and his coach­ing staff.

Shabazz un­der­scored the sub­stan­tial in­vest­ment made be­tween the Guyana Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (GFF) and the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) to or­gan­ise the games, adding that it is a chance to “ex­pose the home-based tal­ent and widen the in­ter­na­tion­al team pool.”

He not­ed that “whether it’s foot­ball, crick­et, hock­ey or even rug­by, when Guyana plays T&T we want to win.”

Guyana has a chal­leng­ing jour­ney through the Con­ca­caf Qual­i­fiers for the FI­FA World Cup Sec­ond Round from June 2024 to 2025 and will com­pete in Group D along­side Pana­ma, Nicaragua, Montser­rat and Be­lize.

Train­ing for the lo­cal con­tin­gent start­ed on May 6 at the GFF Na­tion­al Train­ing Cen­tre, Prov­i­dence, East Bank De­mer­ara.

Among the Guyana ros­ter are some recog­nis­able fig­ures most from the Slingerz FC and Guyana De­fence Force teams such as de­fend­ers Je­re­my Gar­ret and Curtez Kell­man, mid­field­ers Daniel Wil­son and Leo Lovell, and for­ward Kelsey Ben­jamin .

Their con­tri­bu­tions were in­te­gral to the Gold­en Jaguars’ un­de­feat­ed Con­ca­caf Na­tion­al League 2023\2024 cam­paign, which led to a his­toric pro­mo­tion to League A, achieved along­side T&T.

Join­ing the home-based play­ers are four fresh tal­ents with Guyanese her­itage from Cana­da, France, and the US­As who are mak­ing their de­but ap­pear­ances with the Gold­en Jaguars.

Squads

T&T: Christo­pher Biggette (De­fence Force), Aaron Enill (Prison FC), Ross Rus­sell (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Adriel George (1976 FC Phoenix), Robert Primus (Ploice FC), An­dre Ray­mond (un­at­tached), Brent Sam (De­fence Force), Daniel David (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Du­ane Muck­ette (AC PoS), Ezekiel Kezar (Pt Fortin Civic Cen­tre), Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Shervhonez Hamil­ton (Club San­do), Sime­on Bai­ley (Po­lice FC), Kevon God­dard (De­fence Force), Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), Josi­ah Wil­son (Po­lice FC), Alvin Jones (Po­lice FC), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), Liam Burns (AC PoS), Lin­dell Sween (Cale­do­nia AIA), Matthew Woo Ling (De­fence Force), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC), Den­zil Smith (Club San­do FC), Michel Poon Angeron (AC PoS), Shel­don Bateau (SK Bev­eren/Bel­gium), Kevon Wood­ley (Cale­do­nia AIA)

Guyana:

Goal­keep­ers: Ja­maine Cum­ber­batch (Guyana De­fence Force), Amari Thomp­son (FC Mo­town), Si­mon Em­manuel (San­tos FC)

De­fend­ers: Je­re­my Gar­ret (Slingerz FC), Curtez Kell­man (Slingerz FC), Quin­cy Adams (Slingerz FC), Col­in Nel­son (Guyana De­fence Force), Kevin Layne (Guyana Po­lice Force), Cedric Os­born (Guyana De­fence Force).

Mid­field­ers: Leo Lovell (Slingerz FC), Be­van Bak­er In­ter Gainsville KF), Terique Mo­hammed (un­at­tached), Amos Ram­say (Guyana De­fence Force), Nico­lai An­drews (Guyana De­fence Force), Ryan Hack­ett (Guyana De­fence Force), Sime­on Moore (Slingerz FC), Daniel Wil­son (West­ern Tigers), Chris Macey (Guyana De­fence Force), Dar­ron Niles (Slingerz FC), Solomon Austin (Cale­do­nia AIA).

For­wards: Kelsey Ben­jamin (Guyana De­fence Force), Mar­cus Tu­dor (Slingerz FC), An­tho­ny Smith (Cleon FC), Stephen Mc­Don­ald (Guyana De­fence Force)