T&T's So­ca War­riors ar­rived in Bermu­da in hu­mid con­di­tions short­ly af­ter mid­day yes­ter­day and un­der­went a light work out on the com­pound of the Grot­to Bay Ho­tel where they will be based for the rest of the week pri­or to Fri­day's qual­i­fi­er against the hosts. Coach Ot­to Pfis­ter, al­ready miss­ing the ser­vices of cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones and Dar­ryl Roberts as well as An­tho­ny Wolfe due to in­jury, was forced to add T&TEC play­er An­drei Pacheco to the trav­el­ing squad af­ter re­ceiv­ing the news that LA Galaxy mid­field­er Chris Bir­chall suf­fered a ham­string strain and has been ruled out of Fri­day's en­counter. Bir­chall will re­main with Galaxy to un­der­go treat­ment and is hope­ful of mak­ing a re­turn to the T&T squad for the Oc­to­ber 11 qual­i­fi­er against Bar­ba­dos at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

T&T is al­so miss­ing the ser­vices of Ip­swich Town's Car­los Ed­wards. As­sis­tant coach An­ton Corneal said the next few days would prove cru­cial to T&T's readi­ness for Fri­day's match which kicks off at 8pm (7pm) at the Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre. Bel­gium-based mid­field­er Khaleem Hy­land and Colum­bus Crew de­fend­er Julius James are both ex­pect­ed to ar­rive to­day fol­low­ing match­es yes­ter­day with their re­spec­tive teams. Lester Pelti­er and Radan­fah Abu Bakr, as well as Os­ei Teles­ford are al­so ex­pect­ed to ar­rive to­day. "We are faced with a sit­u­a­tion where a cou­ple of our reg­u­lar starters are ruled out but it's not a pan­ic sit­u­a­tion," Corneal said.

"We be­lieve that the cur­rent play­ers in the squad are ca­pa­ble of re­spond­ing well to the chal­lenge.

"Bermu­da have nev­er been an easy team and they are home where they are faced with a must win sit­u­a­tion so we ex­pect they will come at us with every­thing. But once we pre­pare well and we play to plan, the rest will take care of it­self," Corneal added. The T&T team was greet­ed at the LF Wade In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port by a group of Trin­bag­o­ni­ans liv­ing in Bermu­da with T&T flags wav­ing to the rhyth­mic sounds of iron. The team was al­so met by All Sport Pro­mo­tions rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bruce Aa­nensen who ar­rived on the is­land a cou­ple days in ad­vance to en­sure all arrange­ments were in place. Aa­nensen was the man­ag­er of the 2006 World Cup squad.

Mean­time, Bermu­da will be with­out Eng­lish-based play­er Reg­gie Lambe as he is serv­ing a one-match sus­pen­sion af­ter pick­ing up two book­ings dur­ing last month's qual­i­fiers against the "So­ca War­riors" and Guyana.

De­spite Lambe's ab­sence, Bermu­da coach De­varr Boyles should still have a strong squad at his dis­pos­al with over­seas trio Khano Smith, Fred­dy Hall and Nah­ki Wells of Brad­ford City all avail­able. "Al­though avail­abil­i­ty has been sug­gest­ed by every­one there's still a process you have to go through. I've been speak­ing to some of the guys over­seas and Khano Smith, Fred­dy Hall, Quadir May­nard, Tahj Bell and Nah­ki Wells are all con­firmed," said Boyles. In re­la­tion to Hur­ri­cane Ophe­lia which passed east of Bermu­da on Sat­ur­day, there were no ma­jor con­cerns but there is al­so trop­i­cal storm Philippe lo­cat­ed well South East of Bermu­da (up to Sun­day af­ter­noon) that is fore­cast to re­main a trop­i­cal storm .This sys­tem is fore­cast to turn west for a few days and sev­er­al mod­els have this sys­tem south of Bermu­da be­gin­ning to turn back to­wards the north by mid week and is not ex­pect­ed the stag­ing of Fri­day's match.

Squad:

Goal­keep­ers: Mar­vin Phillip (Joe Pub­lic), Jan-Michael Williams (W Con­nec­tion). De­fend­ers: Seon Pow­er (North East Stars), Mekeil Williams (W Con­nec­tion), Akeem Adams (T&TEC), Radan­fah Abu Bakr (Olympic Chaleroi), Os­ei Teles­ford (P/Ri­co Is­landers), Julius James (Colum­bus Crew). Mid­field­ers: Ke­vaughn Con­nell (North East Stars), Hugh­tun Hec­tor (W Con­nec­tion), Clyde Leon (Itagui Di­taires), Kendall Jagdeosingh (Rochester Rhi­nos),

An­drei Pacheco (T&TEC), Khaleem Hy­land (Rac­ing Genk), Lester Pelti­er (AS Trencin), Hay­den Tin­to (Joe Pub­lic), Keon Daniel (Philadel­phia Union). For­wards: Kevin Moli­no (Or­lan­do City), Stern John (North East Stars), De­vorn Jorsling (Or­lan­do City).