So­ca War­riors cap­tain Levi Gar­cia marked his first start since re­turn from his lat­est in­jury lay­off for Greek League and Cup cham­pi­ons, AEK Athens, with the open­ing goal in their 3-0 win over Lamia in the Stoix­i­man Greece Su­per League on Sun­day.

Gar­cia fired AEK in­to the lead in the 11th minute via an as­sist from for­mer Ar­genti­na youth in­ter­na­tion­al Ser­gio Arau­jo, with the lat­ter dou­bling the lead in the 35th.

Gar­cia, who last played for T&T at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in Ju­ly was the last of three play­ers sub­sti­tut­ed out by AEK in the 75th for Eze­quiel Ponce be­fore Pet­ros Man­ta­los added a third item in the fourth minute of time added on af­ter the end of reg­u­la­tion time.

The win lift­ed AEK up to third on the 14-club stand­ings, lev­el with the sec­ond placed Olympia­cos on 24 points from 11 match­es each, four points be­hind Panathi­naikos while PAOK is fourth with 23, fol­lowed by Aris with 17, and Lamia in the sixth and fi­nal qual­i­fy­ing spot with 15.

Gar­cia who turns 26 on No­vem­ber 20 was ex­pect­ed to join up with the So­ca War­riors squad in Austin, Texas yes­ter­day ahead of T&T's Con­ca­caf Na­tions League first-leg quar­ter­fi­nal away to two-time cham­pi­ons USA on Thurs­day at Q2 Sta­di­um, Texas from 10 pm (TT time).

Last week, Gar­cia who missed all of T&T's Con­ca­caf Na­tions League Group A match­es was one of five changes named in a 23-man squad by coach An­gus Eve squad for the home-and-away se­ries against the USA with the re­turn en­counter at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on No­vem­ber 20 from 8 pm.

USA-based goal­keep­er Rushon Sandy of Yava­pai Col­lege, and a for­mer mem­ber of this coun­try’s Un­der-20 men’s foot­ball teams was the lone new­com­er se­lect­ed in the team by Eve which qual­i­fied to the quar­ter­fi­nals as the run­ner-up from their six-na­tion League A Group A round-robin qual­i­fiers with three wins from four match­es for nine points, one be­hind ta­ble-top­per Pana­ma.

Eve al­so re­called Ja­maica-based Nathaniel James, Cana­da-based Mal­colm Shaw, USA-based Shan­non Gomez, and Scot­land-based Daniel Phillips af­ter they all missed the fi­nal group match in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, a 5-3 away loss to Cu­ra­cao on Oc­to­ber 17 with De­fence Force back-up goal­keep­er Jabari St Hillaire, AC Port-of-Spain mid­field­ers Ty­rone Charles, and Du­ane Muck­ette, De­fence Force mid­field­er Kevon God­dard, and Fin­land-based de­fend­er Ka­reem Moses, the play­ers los­ing their place from the last out­ing.

The rest of the team fea­tures goal­keep­ers Den­zil Smith and Christo­pher Biggette, Aubrey David, Jesse Williams, Justin Gar­cia, Ross Rus­sell Jr, Alvin Jones, An­dre Ray­mond, Michael Poon-Angeron, Ne­veal Hack­shaw, Noah Pow­der, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Kris­t­ian Lee-Him, Kaile Au­vray, Re­on Moore, Re­al Gill and Ryan Telfer.

Cana­da faces Ja­maica, Mex­i­co bat­tles Hon­duras and Pana­ma meets Cos­ta Ri­ca in the oth­er Con­ca­caf Na­tions League quar­ter­fi­nals. At the end of the four home-and-away se­ries, the four win­ners will, not on­ly ad­vance to the Na­tions League fi­nal four in March, but al­so will clinch their spots in next sum­mer’s Co­pa Amer­i­ca, which will be held at venues in the Unit­ed States.

The four los­ing quar­ter­fi­nal­ists will still have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to qual­i­fy for Co­pa Amer­i­ca 2024 via a sin­gle-match di­rect elim­i­na­tion play-in, where they will play for the two re­main­ing slots award­ed to Con­ca­caf na­tions for the Co­pa Amer­i­ca which will fea­ture 10 CON­MEBOL na­tions and six Con­ca­caf na­tions.