T&T se­nior men's foot­ball team duo, Eng­land-born mid­field­er Rio Car­dines and USA-born de­fend­er Ko­bi Hen­ry, say they must have a bet­ter start in their next Con­ca­caf Group B World Cup Fi­nal Round Qual­i­fi­er to stand a chance of se­cur­ing all three points.

The pair was speak­ing af­ter the 101st world-ranked "So­ca War­riors" opened their four-team 2026 FI­FA World Qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign with a goal­less draw against 86th-ranked Cu­ra­cao for a share of the points at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, be­fore a sold-out crowd of some 22,000 spec­ta­tors, while Ja­maica crushed host Bermu­da 4-0 in Hamil­ton.

For 19-year-old Car­dines, who plies his trade with Eng­lish Pre­mier League club Crys­tal Palace, it was his sixth se­nior team match since mak­ing his de­but in March ear­li­er this year in a 3-2 loss to Ja­maica in the Uni­ty Cup at the Gtech Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um in Brent­ford, Eng­land.

Com­ment­ing on his team's drawn re­sult against Cu­ra­cao, which saw his team­mates re­cov­er from a slow start to fin­ish strong­ly, Car­dines said, "I think the sec­ond half was def­i­nite­ly bet­ter than the first half."

He added, "We just took a while to get in­to the game and I'm not quite sure what the rea­son was for it, but def­i­nite­ly in the sec­ond half, we were a bit more on it, more en­er­gy and I think the crowd def­i­nite­ly ramped up a bit which kind of gave us the mo­ti­va­tion to at­tack the goal a bit more and cre­ate more chances."

An un­used sub­sti­tute for Crys­tal Palace in their Com­mu­ni­ty Shield penal­ty-kick win over Eng­lish Pre­mier League cham­pi­ons Liv­er­pool last month, Car­dines said, "Half-time was a bit of a wake-up call. First half, it wasn't the great­est per­for­mance from us but def­i­nite­ly some wise words from coach (Dwight Yorke) at half time and we came out a dif­fer­ent team in the sec­ond half and in­stant­ly had the pres­sure on them, and they could have bare­ly got­ten out of their half "

In sum­ming up his own dis­play, Car­dines said he be­lieves his per­son­al per­for­mance was good.

"I def­i­nite­ly brought en­er­gy to the team, a bit of spir­it and de­ter­mi­na­tion and I think every­one had their fight.

"So, in terms of per­son­al per­for­mance, I just feel like I need to get up the pitch a bit more and de­liv­er the balls in­to the box and maybe get in the box as well for Spicer's (Tyrese) cross­es."

With the "Reg­gae Boyz" match to come on Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 9), an up­beat Car­dines, they need to pick up from their sec­ond-half dis­play from the first whis­tle in Kingston, Ja­maica.

"We need to start the game like that against Ja­maica and then we would have a good chance of win­ning.

"The key for us in Ja­maica is to start the game how we fin­ished the game against Cu­ra­cao, and we shouldn't have a prob­lem. They are a good team, but we are a very bet­ter team, and if we def­i­nite­ly bring the en­er­gy, we have a very good chance of win­ning and top­ping the group.

"We def­i­nite­ly need to con­tin­ue to be­lieve in our­selves and it helps hav­ing sup­port from the crowd, but this next game is go­ing to be away, so we will lack the crowd, but I still feel like we will have the same en­er­gy be­cause that game was a wake-up call and a good start for the cam­paign."

With re­gards to the new en­vi­ron­ment be­ing cre­at­ed by the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) to pro­mote the play­ers more vis­i­bly than in the past, Car­dines said, "It was a mas­sive dif­fer­ence just see­ing your­self up on the walls of the sta­di­um that you just dream of play­ing in."

He added, "It's a big thing and I'm hap­py that the TTFA have got a new chang­ing room in as it makes a dif­fer­ence to the lads as they feel more com­fort­able get­ting ready for the games and it's a lot more pro­fes­sion­al and I feel like it can help in the fu­ture."

Speak­ing af­ter the match, 21-year-old Hen­ry, who is at­tached to US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's (MLS) Re­al Salt Lake and made his de­but on the night, said the point at home, while not what they want­ed, was still a good start.

The grand­son of the T&T "Strike Squad" team's phys­i­cal train­er, Ken Hen­ry, the new T&T cen­tral de­fend­er, al­so ex­pressed the view that the team lift­ed their per­for­mance in the sec­ond half.

"I thought our sec­ond half was a lot bet­ter than the first half, and the words of the coach helped us at half-time.

"In the sec­ond half, we played with a lot more con­fi­dence. We were go­ing for­ward more and tak­ing our chances and we are hap­py with the clean sheet and we just have to keep go­ing."

Hen­ry fur­ther ex­plained, "I just think in the sec­ond half, our mid­field had a re­al­ly big per­for­mance in get­ting on the ball and show­ing con­fi­dence and mak­ing for­ward pass­es and that's what re­al­ly made the dif­fer­ence and I thought our front three were mak­ing re­al­ly good runs in the sec­ond half, and of course the back line hold­ing it down for the whole game, so I think sec­ond half we had a lit­tle more con­fi­dence and played more for­ward pass­es."

With re­gards to the Ja­maica clash, Hen­ry said he feels re­al­ly good about it.

He said, "As long as we re­cov­er well and keep this con­fi­dence that we had in the sec­ond half and go over there and do our best with con­fi­dence."

Asked how he felt about fi­nal­ly don­ning the na­tion­al colours of T&T, hav­ing been tar­get­ed since 2020, Hen­ry said he was filled with ho­n­our just see­ing the fans and how much it means to every­one.

"It's a big pride for me and my fam­i­ly, so I'm very grate­ful for this op­por­tu­ni­ty. Every­one's re­al­ly proud of me and they will be keep­ing me go­ing and I'm re­al­ly ap­pre­cia­tive of that," said Hen­ry.