With two more match­es out­stand­ing in League A of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League against Guatemala and Cu­ra­cao for a sec­ond time, de­fen­sive mid­field­er Ne­veal Hack­shaw is stress­ing the need for the T&T team to stay fo­cused.

The So­ca War­riors will face Guatemala on Fri­day night at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, in a match that can po­ten­tial­ly take them to nine points. Af­ter two wins against Cu­ra­cao (1-0) and El Sal­vador (3-2), the lo­cal team will have no room for er­ror with both, the Guatemalans and the Pana­ma­ni­ans ready to pounce.

Both teams have four points from a win and a draw each and could take the top spot with a blun­der from the T&T team. Coach An­gus Eve and his team were ex­pect­ed to be back to full strength yes­ter­day with the re­turn of six key play­ers who were in­volved in ac­tion at the week­end with their re­spec­tive teams.

Hack­shaw, in an in­ter­view on Tues­day be­fore a train­ing ses­sion, said there is no room to fal­ter.

He said: "It's very im­por­tant for us to stay fo­cused, even from now be­cause they are not com­ing to sit back. They want to get back on top and we are the lead­ers, so I think it's very im­por­tant for us to go out there and get the three points and stay on top to qual­i­fy."

He not­ed: "Once the coach gives us the game plan and every­one stays on board and no one tries to switch up, every­thing will be fine. Some­times it's how you fin­ish and not how you start, but we need to start stronger now be­cause it's on­ly go­ing to get hard­er from here. So we just need to be fo­cused."

Mean­while, fit-again de­fend­er Alvin Jones is hap­py to be back in the T&T squad af­ter be­ing over­looked for the two open­ing match­es. Jones, whose abil­i­ty to hit spank­ing shots from long dis­tances can be an as­set on Fri­day, said it is al­ways an ho­n­our to rep­re­sent the coun­try.

"I am very hap­py to be back here once more. I am just ex­cit­ed to be out there Fri­day and to do my best.

"For us, every game is a fi­nal. We have a very young squad so we know the en­er­gy will be there, so I just want us to go out there and ex­press our­selves and come home with the three points," Jones said.

STAND­INGS

GROUP A

Pos*Team*MP*W*D*L*Gf*Ga*GD*Pts

1*T&T*2*2*0*0*4*2*2*6

2*Pana­ma*2*1*1*0*4*1*3*4

3*Guatemala*2*1*1*0*3*1*2*4

4*Mar­tinique*2*1*0*1*1*3*-2*3

5*Cu­ra­cao*2*0*0*2*0*2*-2*0

6*El Sal­vador*2*0*0*2*2*5*-3*0