T&T's So­ca War­riors touched down on Eng­lish soil yes­ter­day and opened prepa­ra­tions with a light gym ses­sion ahead of the Uni­ty Cup, which will in­volve T&T and Ja­maica as the two Caribbean teams, as well as African gi­ants, Ghana and Nige­ria.

The bat­tle will be­gin on Tues­day (May 27) with the War­riors and Ja­maicans squar­ing off at the Brent­ford GTECH Com­mu­ni­ty Sta­di­um in Eng­land, while Nige­ria and Ghana will clash in the oth­er match.

De­fend­er Alvin Jones re­joined the team af­ter a short stint in Hon­duras, say­ing the match­es will be key for ex­pe­ri­ence for some of the younger play­ers, as he al­so made it clear that the team's fo­cus is the World Cup Qual­i­fi­er against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

"We had a light gym ses­sion, and we're get­ting ac­cus­tomed to the en­vi­ron­ment. It's been a while since we've played to­geth­er and seen some of the guys. It's great to get the ball rolling, go­ing in­to the World Cup qual­i­fiers. Against Ja­maica, I ex­pect a very tough game. Us and Ja­maica, it's a ri­val­ry, we all know it's the bat­tle of the Caribbean, so I ex­pect a very strong and in­tense game," Jones told the me­dia soon af­ter train­ing.

He added: "It's an ho­n­our to be rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the Uni­ty Cup. Just the likes of Ja­maica and the African gi­ants, we know it's a ma­jor tour­na­ment for us. It would be a good ex­pe­ri­ence for some of the young play­ers to ex­press them­selves, es­pe­cial­ly in an en­vi­ron­ment like Eng­land."

Coach Dwight Yorke said re­cent­ly that his fo­cus is on the World Cup qual­i­fiers, which face the fi­nal round. Af­ter the St Kitts & Nevis en­counter, the So­ca War­riors will take on Cos­ta Ri­ca away on June 10.

Four days af­ter the Cos­ta Ri­ca tie, the So­ca War­riors will be­gin their Con­ca­caf Gold Cup cam­paign along­side 15 oth­er na­tions: Haiti, El Sal­vador, Cu­ra­cao, Pana­ma, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Mex­i­co, Suri­name, Ja­maica, Guade­loupe, Guatemala, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Hon­duras, Sau­di Ara­bia, Cana­da and the US.

T&T has been drawn to host the Unit­ed States, Haiti and guest team Sau­di Ara­bia in Group D.

Yorke has named a strong team for the Uni­ty Cup, com­pris­ing De­fence Force strik­er Isa­iah "Bon­go" Lea­cock mak­ing his first ap­pear­ance for T&T.

T&T SQUAD

GOAL­KEEP­ERS:

Mar­vin Phillip, Jabari St Hillaire

DE­FEND­ERS:

Shel­don Bateau, Justin Gar­cia, Ja­mal Jack, Alvin Jones, Jesse Williams, An­dre Ray­mond, Je­lani Pe­ters, Sher­vohnez Hamil­ton

MID­FIELD­ERS:

Kevin Moli­no, Daniel Phillips, Jo­evin Jones, Noah Pow­der, Du­ane Muck­ette, John-Paul Rochford, Dan­taye Gilbert, Kris­t­ian Lee-Him, Rio Car­dines, Kai­him Thomas

FOR­WARDS:

Isa­iah Lea­cock, Re­on Moore, Isa­iah Lee, Brent Sam