Two new in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers are set to join the T&T ros­ter for the match­es against South Ko­rea and Rus­sia on May 30 and then on June 9 abroad.

Na­tion­al coach Derek King an­nounced this dur­ing a WAVETV in­ter­view on Sun­day and said the play­ers will be con­firmed by to­day. King, giv­en a one-year con­tract as se­nior na­tion­al men’s coach, said he did not want to call the names of the play­ers un­til they were con­firmed.

“What I can tell you is that they are 90 per cent sure at this point in time,” King said on Tues­day.

The re­cruit­ment of the play­ers is in line with King’s de­sire to widen the pool of play­ers from which he will have to choose. King al­so em­barked on a scout­ing mis­sion to en­sure that lo­cal play­ers are not left out.

“I think we need to give these lo­cal play­ers ex­po­sure as well. So it’s im­por­tant that we have a good lo­cal-based team in train­ing and give them the op­por­tu­ni­ty. I don’t want the lo­cal play­ers to feel dull, but I think we need to widen our pool of play­ers, and it’s im­por­tant for the lo­cal and for­eign-based play­ers, as we are look­ing for the best team pos­si­ble and play­ers to rep­re­sent our coun­try, re­gard­less of whether they come from lo­cal or for­eign,” King ex­plained.

He added, “You know, when we watch the foot­ball now, the pace of the foot­ball is com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent, so I think it’s very im­por­tant that we have a lo­cal-based team in train­ing and we can have a base here and we can add some of the lo­cal and for­eign play­ers to the pool, which will be a good sign go­ing for­ward.”

One of the in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers, King said, lives and plays in Scot­land, while the oth­er lives in the Unit­ed States.

King at­tend­ed the fi­nal of the East-West Cor­ri­dor Foot­ball League on Sun­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo and said his process of scout­ing for tal­ent­ed play­ers con­tin­ues. King took over from Dwight Yorke fol­low­ing a dis­as­trous World Cup qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign in which the team fin­ished third in the fi­nal round qual­i­fiers of a group that con­sist­ed of Bermu­da, Cu­ra­cao and Ja­maica.

In his re­build­ing process, King, once an as­sis­tant to na­tion­al coach­es Stephen Hart, An­gus Eve, and Den­nis Lawrence, al­ready has an idea of how he in­tends to play, start­ing with the match­es against Rus­sia and South Ko­rea. “At the end of the day, once you’re win­ning, every­body is on board, but once you’re not get­ting any re­sults, you won’t see a full sta­di­um.

So I think it’s im­por­tant that we know our iden­ti­ty, we play pos­i­tive­ly, we are brave, and we have qual­i­ty play­ers go­ing for­ward. I think some­thing that we need to work on is mo­ments where we give away many soft goals. So we have to play both of­fen­sive­ly and de­fen­sive­ly as a unit,” King ex­plained on Sun­day.