There is no room for the De­fence Force’s tal­ent­ed mid­field­er Kai­him Thomas, de­fend­ers Alvin Jones, Dar­nell Hospedales and Isa­iah Gar­cia, as well as goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip when na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke picked his squad for the com­ing World Cup Qual­i­fiers against Bermu­da on Fri­day, Oc­to­ber 10, at the Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre, Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, North Shore Vil­lage, and then on Oc­to­ber 14 against Cu­ra­cao at the Ergilio Ha­to Sta­di­um in Willem­stad.

Both match­es are con­sid­ered do-or-die clash­es, with Yorke’s charges fac­ing a her­culean task of hav­ing to win all their re­main­ing games, since their open­ing draw was 0-0 with Cu­ra­cao, fol­lowed by their 2-0 loss to Ja­maica. In ad­di­tion to the com­ing two games, T&T will next face Ja­maica’s Reg­gae Boyz at the Hase­ly Craw­ford on No­vem­ber 13 and will close off their cam­paign against Bermu­da at home on No­vem­ber 18 at the sta­di­um.

Yorke brought in de­fend­er Deron Payne, who was ex­pect­ed to make his de­but in the red, white, and black against Cu­ra­cao and Ja­maica, but in­juries stepped in the way. Payne cam­paigns for FC Volen­dam in the Dutch Ere­di­visie and plays as a right-back. He is a 22-year-old who is in the fi­nal year of a three-year con­tract with Volen­dam.

He made his Ere­di­visie de­but for Volen­dam on No­vem­ber 6, 2022, in a game against Feyeno­ord, and was born in the Nether­lands to a Trinida­di­an fa­ther and Dutch moth­er. He is the younger broth­er of the de­fend­er De­se­vio Payne, 29, who plays for Konin­klijke FC in the Dutch Tweede Di­visie, the high­est am­a­teur league in Hol­land.

With on­ly vic­to­ries need­ed in their com­ing match­es, Yorke al­so turned to mid­field­er Mo­lik Khan, who rep­re­sents AS Trencin in the Slo­va­kian Foot­ball League, while bring­ing in De­fence Force’s Jabari Brice as a re­place­ment for vet­er­an goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip. Mean­while, mid­field­er Moli­no re­turns to the team af­ter miss­ing the Ja­maica en­counter.

Yorke’s team has been strug­gling for luck af­ter scor­ing three times through strik­er at­tack­er Levi Gar­cia but still lost 2-0 against Ja­maica. And in the Cu­raçao game, they failed to score, al­though they dom­i­nat­ed in at­tack for long pe­ri­ods. Since the Ja­maica loss, there have been calls for the for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed strik­er, who is hav­ing on­ly his sec­ond stint as a coach, to be re­placed.

To date, the T&T team is third in the four-team Group B stand­ings with a point from two match­es, need­ing to win the group to as­sure them­selves au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion. The group is be­ing led by Ja­maica with an un­blem­ished record so far on six points, while Cu­ra­cao sits in the sec­ond po­si­tion with four points from a win-and-draw record against Bermu­da and T&T.

T&T SQUAD

Wayne Fred­er­ick II, Dante Sealy, Justin Obik­wu, Justin Gar­cia, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Rio Car­dines, Re­al Gill, Jabari St Hillaire, Den­zil Smith, Noah Pow­der, Kaile Au­vray, Isa­iah Lee, Mo­lik Khan, Jabari Brice, Deron Payne, Ko­bi Hen­ry, Jer­ribn Jack­ie, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Stef­fen Yeates, Daniel Phillips, Nathaniel James, Kevin Moli­no, Levi Gar­cia, Ryan Telfer, Tyrese Spicer.