​T&T se­nior men's foot­ball team duo Re­al Gill and Wayne Fred­er­ick II are look­ing for­ward to a stronger home per­for­mance when they en­ter­tain An­tigua and Bar­bu­da in the re­turn leg of their Con­ca­caf Na­tions League Play-In to­wards qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup.

​On Thurs­day, the So­ca War­riors end­ed a 13-match win­less run with a 3-2 vic­to­ry over An­tigua & Bar­bu­da at the Sir Vi­vian Richards Sta­di­um in St John's, An­tigua, tak­ing a one-goal ad­van­tage in­to the sec­ond leg af­ter falling be­hind ear­ly.

​An­tigua & Bar­bu­da led as ear­ly as the third minute through an own goal from Cana­da-based T&T winger Ryan Telfer, but Dan­taye Gilbert drew T&T lev­el on a feed from Gill in the 15th minute be­fore Gill found the back of the net him­self via an as­sist from Mo­lik Khan in the 25th. On the stroke of half-time, Justin Gar­cia made it 3-1 for the vis­i­tors.

​How­ev­er, de­spite be­ing in con­trol of the con­test for most of the sec­ond half, T&T failed to put the match to bed. Three min­utes in­to time added-on at the end of the 90 min­utes, Bran­don Satchell scored a sec­ond goal for the hosts to keep alive their chances of over­turn­ing the nar­row 3-2 deficit.

Speak­ing af­ter a train­ing ses­sion at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma Sat­ur­day (No­vem­ber 14), ahead of Mon­day’s (No­vem­ber 16) sec­ond-leg meet­ing at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, both Gill and Fred­er­ick vowed to de­liv­er a bet­ter per­for­mance. This will have to be ac­com­plished with­out the ser­vices of Cana­da-based duo stand-in cap­tain An­dre Ram­per­sad and Telfer.

​The pair both re­turned to their Cana­di­an club, Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers, and are un­avail­able for the sec­ond en­counter, join­ing Levi Gar­cia and Ko­bi Hen­ry as play­ers called up who will miss the con­test.

In Ram­per­sad and Telfer's ab­sence, USA-based mid­field­er Michel Poon-Angeron was added to Derek King’s squad, while goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith will as­sume the cap­tain's role.

​Speak­ing af­ter yes­ter­day's train­ing ses­sion, Gill, 23, said it felt good to be back on the score­sheet for T&T, though the squad left St John’s know­ing it was ca­pa­ble of more.

“At the end of the day, we felt dis­ap­point­ed be­cause we knew we were bet­ter than what we showed out there,” Gill of USA's One Knox­ille SC said.

“For me per­son­al­ly I felt good scor­ing for the coun­try and I felt my per­for­mance was de­cent but over­all as a team I think we didn’t per­form too well. We lacked some guile and then in the sec­ond half we lost the dri­ve to re­al­ly fin­ish off the game bet­ter than we did. We have to come back bet­ter and re­al­ly lift our­selves and put on a bet­ter show­ing on Mon­day,” Gill said.

​He added that the team could have made more of its sec­ond-half op­por­tu­ni­ties af­ter build­ing a 3-1 lead be­fore the break. Look­ing ahead to to­mor­row, he said, “We, as the play­ers of this coun­try, ex­pect our­selves to do much bet­ter.”

The 22-year-old Fred­er­ick II, of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's Col­orado Rapids, said the re­turn leg gives T&T a chance to put what they learned in St John’s in­to prac­tice in front of their home sup­port­ers.

"We know that it wasn’t our best per­for­mance, but we know we have an­oth­er chance at home to make a state­ment and get a bet­ter re­sult and move on to the next round. So that’s what we look to do, and we look to im­prove and just learn from the mis­takes that we made in the last game," Fred­er­ick said.

Fred­er­ick went on to add that the team backed it­self to re­cov­er af­ter con­ced­ing ear­ly in An­tigua. T&T went in 3-1 up at half-time, though he felt they could have put the game be­yond reach.

“It’s al­ways dif­fi­cult when a team is sit­ting back deep­er and not try­ing to let you score any more goals,” he said. “That’s what we have to un­der­stand, that it’s go­ing to take time. We have to be pa­tient, pick our mo­ments. Mov­ing for­ward, we’re go­ing to learn from it and just fig­ure out how to break down those low­er blocks of de­fence.”

Fred­er­ick al­so re­flect­ed on re­ceiv­ing his first in­di­vid­ual award at the club lev­el and the work that went in­to earn­ing his op­por­tu­ni­ty. He was named Col­orado Rapids’ "Young Play­er of the Year", last week.

“It means a lot. It just shows the growth and de­vel­op­ment that I’ve gone through over this year. Cred­it to the club for be­liev­ing in me and giv­ing me the right sup­port to al­low me to grow. I’m re­al­ly, re­al­ly hap­py to get that award for a de­cent sea­son, but just look­ing to move for­ward and im­prove as I con­tin­ue my ca­reer,” he said.

“I worked re­al­ly hard for it. I trained hard in the off-sea­son, came in ready, earned the coach­es’ trust, and then when you get your op­por­tu­ni­ty, you have to take it. I think I made the most of it. As I con­tin­ue to grow and learn, I’m just try­ing to im­prove as much as I can.”

Fred­er­ick II said stay­ing ready dur­ing a stretch with few­er min­utes for club and coun­try was part of that de­vel­op­ment.

“There’s valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence re­gard­less if you’re play­ing or not, and just learn­ing from oth­er peo­ple. See­ing dif­fer­ent types of foot­ball helps you grow as a per­son, as a play­er.”

With the team back on home soil, Fred­er­ick II said the play­ers want to give the sup­port­ers a per­for­mance they can take pride in.

“We just want to make every­body in the coun­try proud. So we’re go­ing to go out there and try our best and give it our all for the na­tion.”