In­ter­im So­ca War­riors Derek King kept faith with the play­ers who have rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the two sec­ond-round Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers against St Kitts & Nevis and Ba­hamas in June when nam­ing his 23-man squad for the open­ing two Con­ca­caf Na­tions League League A match­es.

The So­ca War­riors leave on eptem­ber 3 for their open­ing match in the CNL away to Hon­duras on Sep­tem­ber 6 at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional Chela­to Ucles, Tegu­ci­gal­pa, be­fore host­ing French Guiana at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, on Sep­tem­ber 10 at 7 pm.

T&T has been drawn in Group B with Ja­maica, Hon­duras, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, and French Guiana while Group A is made up of Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, Suri­name, and Guyana.

The 44-year-old King was ap­point­ed as in­ter­im coach of the team last month af­ter the sack­ing of An­gus Eve, 52, fol­low­ing a meet­ing chaired by T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent and tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee chair­man Kieron Ed­wards and his team re­flects a con­tin­u­a­tion of the work un­der Eve.

How­ev­er, 26-year-old Greece-based for­ward Levi Gar­cia of AEK Athens has re­quest­ed time off and will not be avail­able for the two match­es while USA-based 21-year-old Ajani For­tune of At­lanta Unit­ed is al­so un­avail­able.

De­spite these ab­sences, coach King re­mains con­fi­dent in the strength and depth of the squad.

“The team we’ve se­lect­ed is one that has shown great po­ten­tial and co­he­sion over the past few months,” King told TTFA Me­dia.

“As we be­gin our Group stage cam­paign, the se­lect­ed play­ers are fit, fo­cused and ready to per­form at their best. I have been in dis­cus­sion with each play­er about their ex­pec­ta­tions and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties. While it is nev­er easy to nar­row down the squad I be­lieve the play­ers cho­sen are the ones who will help us nav­i­gate these two im­por­tant fix­tures suc­cess­ful­ly.

“We need to be pro­fes­sion­al and dis­ci­plined in our ap­proach and recog­nise the chal­lenge of play­ing away from home in our open­ing match. It will be im­por­tant that we main­tain a high lev­el of pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­main fo­cused through­out.”

Eve was axed on Ju­ly 31 de­spite hav­ing more than a year left on his con­tract and ac­cord­ing to the TTFA re­lease, King’s ap­point­ment is for the two match­es in the Sep­tem­ber win­dow.

Fol­low­ing the match­es against Hon­duras and French Guiana, T&T will then face Cu­ba in a pair of match­es on Oc­to­ber 10 away from home, and then four days lat­er at home.

Af­ter Group Stage play in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, the first and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers of each group will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals, where they will join the four top-ranked League A teams (Mex­i­co, USA, Pana­ma, and Cana­da).

The quar­ter­fi­nals will be played in No­vem­ber in a home-and-away for­mat, with the ag­gre­gate score win­ner in each matchup ad­vanc­ing to the 2025 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League Fi­nals.

The So­ca War­riors are al­so in­volved in the 2026 FI­FA World Cup Sec­ond Round qual­i­fiers and have four points from two match­es in Group B af­ter draw­ing their open­er at home with St Kitts & Nevis 2-2 fol­lowed by an em­phat­ic 7-1 blowout of Ba­hamas, Eve’s last match in charge while Cos­ta Ri­ca leads the ta­ble with a max­i­mum six points.

T&T will com­plete their four-match sched­ule in 2025 with a home en­counter against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourite Cos­ta Ri­ca, four days lat­er.

T&T So­ca War­riors squad:

Goal­keep­ers: Christo­pher Biggette(De­fence Force), Den­zil Smith (AC Port-of-Spain), Aaron Enill (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica)

De­fend­ers: Aubrey David (CS De­porti­vo Mu­nic­i­pal/Guatemala), Tris­ton Hodge (Hart­ford Ath­let­ic/USA), Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery/USA), An­dre Ray­mond (St John­stone FC/Scot­land), Shan­non Gomez (San An­to­nion FC/USA), Alvin Jones (Po­lice FC), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force)

Mid­field­ers: Du­ane Muck­ette (AC Port-of-Spain), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Stef­fen Yeates (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da), Dan­taye Gilbert (Jong PSV/Hol­land), Noah Pow­der (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm/USA), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land),

For­wards: Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Ryan Telfer (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Nathaniel James (Mount Pleas­ant/Ja­maica), Re­al Gill (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm), Re­on Moore (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da), Kaile Au­vray (Cav­a­liers FC/Ja­maica), Kevon Wood­ley (Po­lice FC).

Tech­ni­cal staff: Derek King (in­ter­im coach), Walt Nor­ie­ga (as­sis­tant coach), Ross Rus­sell (goal­keep­er coach), Adar­ryl John (ath­let­ic train­er), Saron Joseph (strength and con­di­tion­ing coach), Joseph Rooplal (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Michael Williams (equip­ment man­ag­er), Dr Akash Dhanai (doc­tor), Shaun Fuentes (me­dia of­fi­cer), Richard Piper (man­ag­er)