New T&T call-up Stef­fen Yeates is ex­cit­ed to wear the red, white, and black of T&T against Grena­da in the open­ing World Cup Qual­i­fi­er from 7.30 pm Wednes­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

He is one of 25 play­ers cho­sen by na­tion­al coach An­gus Eve for the open­ing two match­es.

On Mon­day, Eve said that his team is in a good place with most of his strik­ers re­turn­ing to goal-scor­ing form, along with his mid­field­ers fol­low­ing goals from Yeates for his team Pa­cif­ic FC in the Cana­di­an Pre­mier League at the week­end and Michel Poon-Angeron.

Yeates told the me­dia yes­ter­day that he was hap­py to be with the T&T team and hap­py to have been called up by Eve and his staff.

“It’s a long jour­ney over from Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. It’s a group of guys who are pas­sion­ate about the game and want to win and progress to the next round of the qual­i­fiers.

“For me, it’s a unique op­por­tu­ni­ty and I thank coach An­gus and his staff for al­low­ing me and call­ing me up for the team. “I’m very hun­gry, I’m very grate­ful, I’m very mo­ti­vat­ed to be here and do well for the team, do well for my­self, and just the op­por­tu­ni­ty to qual­i­fy for the World Cup,” Yeates said.

Yes­ter­day, mid­field­er Ajani For­tune com­plet­ed Eve’s puz­zle ahead of tonight’s clash at which Eve will at­tempt to pro­duce a win­ning ef­fort to re­verse the re­sults in their last five meet­ings against the Grena­di­ans.

In those af­fairs, there were two loss­es for T&T com­ing at the Caribbean Cup in De­cem­ber 2008 and No­vem­ber 2010. In the oth­er three match­es, all of which were in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly en­coun­ters, the So­ca War­riors were held to ties - March 2016 (2-2); April 2017 (2-2), and in No­vem­ber 2017 the teams again played to a 2-2 draw.

Al­to­geth­er, how­ev­er, the teams met on 19 oc­ca­sions and the War­riors have won 12, drawn four, and lost three times.

AK Athens speedy winger Levi Gar­cia, who is al­so with the team told the me­dia he is ex­cit­ed to be back with the unit. Gar­cia missed an easy chance to score for the War­riors in their Co­pa Amer­i­ca qual­i­fi­er against Cana­da in March at the Toy­ota Sta­di­um in the Unit­ed States. T&T lost the match 2-0 but Gar­cia had left a dis­ap­point­ed man.

Yes­ter­day, he said: “It feels re­al­ly great to be back home, it has been a while since I’ve played in front of my home fans, so hope­ful­ly they can de­liv­er and give you guys a good show.”

Cap­tain Aubrey David called his team to hit the ground run­ning with a vic­to­ry in the group. Apart from T&T Group B of the qual­i­fiers al­so in­cludes St Kitts and Nevis, the Ba­hamas, and Cos­ta Ri­ca. The top two teams will ad­vance.

T&T will next face the Ba­hamas on Sat­ur­day in the Ba­hamas.

TEAMS

T&T

Christo­pher Biggette, Aubrey David, Tris­ton Hodge, Daniel Phillips, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Ryan Telfer, Noah Pow­der, Nathaniel James, Re­al Gill, Levi Gar­cia, Stef­fen Yeates, Re­on Moore, Shan­non Gomez, Dan­taye Gilbert, Alvin Jones, Justin Gar­cia, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Mal­colm Shaw, Ajani For­tune, Aar­i­on Enill, Den­zil Smith, Kevon Wood­ley, Michel Poon-Angeron, Du­ane Muck­ette.

Coach - An­gus Eve

GRENA­DA

Ja­son Bel­fon GK, Tr­ishawn Thomas GK, Chad Phillip, Ben­jamin Et­ti­enne (RM), Brady Charles, Josh Gabriel, Kay­den Har­rack, Omar Beck­les, Stef­fon Abra­ham, Trevon Williams, Kwaz­im Theodore, Keis­hon Clarke, Myles Hip­poly­te, Jamie Kabu­usu, Dar­ius John­son, Ro­mar Frank, Vi­jay Val­cin, Lu­cas Akins, Shavon John-Brown, Sadrel Lewis, Ja­mal Charles, Jer­maine Fran­cis.

Coach - Shal­rie Joseph