NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

So­ca War­riors coach An­gus Eve is ex­pect­ed to se­lect a most­ly lo­cal­ly-based 23-man ros­ter for his team’s friend­ly en­counter against Guatemala on Sun­day (June 11) at Sub­aru Park, Chester, Penn­syl­va­nia, USA from 5 pm.

The match will serve as the lone warm-up en­counter for the So­ca War­riors ahead of their must-win pre­lim­i­nary round CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup qual­i­fi­er ver­sus Guade­loupe on June 16 at DRV PNK Sta­di­um, in Fort Laud­erdale, USA, from 4.30 pm with the win­ner to meet the win­ner of the Guyana and Grena­da pre­lim­i­nary clash, for a spot in the 16-na­tion Gold Cup main draw Group C se­ries which al­ready in­cludes Cana­da, Guatemala, and Cu­ba.

Last week, Eve named a 60-man pre­lim­i­nary squad for the 2023 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup in the USA, fea­tur­ing 32 over­seas-based play­ers and 28 lo­cal­ly-based.

How­ev­er, with the core of se­nior over­seas-based play­ers in­clu­sive of for­mer cap­tain Kevin Moli­no of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer’s Colum­bus Crew and Levi Gar­cia, who is com­ing off a very suc­cess­ful sea­son with AEK Athens in which he won both the League and Cup dou­ble, both in the squad af­ter they both missed out on the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League B qual­i­fiers clos­ing stage through in­jury.

Moli­no re­turned to com­pet­i­tive ac­tion for his club last week­end while Gar­cia has com­plet­ed his Greek sea­son and they should both find them­selves in Eve’s fi­nal Gold Cup 25-man squad along­side Shel­don Bateau, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Le­land Archer, Nick­las Fren­derup, Aubrey David, Ka­reem Moses, Shan­non Gomez, Ryan Telfer, Kaile Au­vray, Tris­tan Hodge, Mo­lik Khan, Jo­mal Williams, Daniel Phillips, Je­lani Pe­ters, and Cana­di­an-born strik­er Mal­colm Isa­iah Shaw of Cana­di­an Pre­mier League strug­gler, Atléti­co Ot­tawa.

The oth­er over­seas play­ers short­list­ed by Eve, but who may find it dif­fi­cult to break in­to the squad with strong com­pe­ti­tion for places com­ing from the lo­cals in­clude An­dre For­tune II, Jesse Williams, Samory Pow­der, An­tho­ny Her­bert, Je­lani Pe­ters, An­dre Ray­mond, Ajani For­tune, his broth­er An­dre For­tune II, Matthew Woo Ling, Jesse Williams, Michael Ked­man and the un­capped quin­tet of Rio Car­dines, Mic­ah Cain, Luke Singh, Kris­t­ian Lee-Him and Ja­heim Wick­ham.

Most of the Eu­ro­pean-based play­ers who have com­plet­ed their sea­sons, ex­cept the un­capped quin­tet are ex­pect­ed to be ex­cused by Eve for the Guatemala-en­counter along with the North Amer­i­can-based play­ers who will be in club ac­tion this week­end, leav­ing room for the lo­cals to make one last im­pres­sion against Guatemala, fol­low­ing which the team heads in­to a live-in camp on Mon­day (June 12) along with the lo­cal­ly-based con­tin­gent head­ed by the ex­pe­ri­enced duo of past and present cap­tains, mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones of Po­lice FC, and goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip of AC Port-of-Spain along with a core of stand­out per­form­ers in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) in­clu­sive of Tiger Tanks Club San­do’s Nathaniel James, the tour­na­ment’s top scor­er with 13 goals, his club­mate Alvin Jones, and AC Port-of-Spain quar­tet Michael Poon-Angeron, Du­ane Muck­ette, Jameel Nep­tune and John-Paul Rochford, all ex­pect­ed to be in the fi­nal ros­ter.

The na­tion­al coach is set to ad­dress the me­dia at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la be­fore the team de­parts for Penn­syl­va­nia on Fri­day.

The pre­lim­i­nary round one fix­tures be­tween Mar­tinique and St Lu­cia and Cu­ra­cao and St Kitts and Nevis will al­so take place on June 16 at the DRV PNK Sta­di­um in Fort Laud­erdale from 7 pm and 9 pm, re­spec­tive­ly.

A day lat­er (June 17), at the same venue, the three re­main­ing first-round pre­lim­i­nary match­es will come off with French Guiana against Saint Maarten from 4.30 pm fol­lowed by Suri­name ver­sus Puer­to Ri­co at 7 pm and two hours lat­er, Guyana up against Grena­da.

In the sec­ond round of the pre­lim­i­nar­ies, the win­ner of the Mar­tinique/St Lu­cia match and the win­ner of the Suri­name/Puer­to Ri­co clash will square off for a place in Group C along­side the Cen­tral Amer­i­can trio of Cos­ta Ri­ca, Pana­ma, and El Sal­vador while the third and fi­nal pre­lim­i­nary round pair­ings see Cu­ra­cao and St Kitts and Nevis win­ner meet­ing French Guiana and Sint Maarten win­ner for a place in Group A where the USA, Ja­maica, and Nicaragua await. Group B of the main draw will fea­ture Mex­i­co, Haiti, Hon­duras, Asian Cham­pi­ons, and guest na­tion, Qatar.

To as­sist Eve and his lo­cal­ly-based play­ers in their prepa­ra­tions for the up­com­ing friend­ly against Guatemala, the sched­uled TTPFL round 20 match­es card­ed for to­day (Wednes­day) have been pushed to Sat­ur­day (June 10) and Sun­day (June 11).

T&T pre­lim­i­nary Gold Cup ros­ter

Goal­keep­ers: Mar­vin Phillip (AC PoS), Nick­las Fren­derup (Ran­heim IL/Nor­way), Den­zil Smith (W Con­nec­tion), Ra­heem Lee (Po­lice FC), Ja­heim Wick­ham (Toron­to FC/Cana­da).

De­fend­ers: Aubrey David (SD Au­cas/Ecuador), Shel­don Bateau (SK Bev­eren/Bel­gium), Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery/USA), Ka­reem Moses (FF Jaro/Fin­land), Shan­non Gomez (San An­to­nio FC/USA), Alvin Jones (Club San­do), Tris­ton Hodge (Hart­ford Ath­let­ic/USA), Stephon Mar­cano (VC Fu­sion/USA), Josi­ah Coop­er (Club San­do), Ross Rus­sell Jr (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Michael Ked­man (Aal­borg/Den­mark), Luke Singh (Atleti­co Ot­tawa/Cana­da), An­tho­ny Her­bert (FC Ha­ka/Fin­land), Je­lani Pe­ters (Mem­phis 901 FC/USA), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), An­dre Ray­mond (Du­miense CJP/Por­tu­gal), Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Club San­do), Jesse Williams (Des Moines Men­ace/USA), Noah Pow­der (un­at­tached),

Mid­field­ers: Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice FC), Daniel Phillips (St John­stone FC/Scot­land), Ryan Telfer (Mi­a­mi FC/USA), Michael Poon-Angeron (AC PoS), Nathaniel James (Club San­do), Kevin Moli­no (Colum­bus Crew/USA), Levi Gar­cia (AEK Athens/Greece), Re­al Gill (Club San­do), Ne­veal Hack­shaw (Oak­land Roots/USA), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Kaile Au­vray (Sport­ing Kansas/USA), Mo­lik Khan (Min­neso­ta Unit­ed/USA), Samory Pow­der (Hud­son Val­ley Ham­mers/USA), Ka­reem Ri­ley (Club San­do), Jameel Nep­tune (AC PoS), Kevon God­dard (De­fence Force), Mic­ah Cain (TSV Meer­busch/Ger­many), Ajani For­tune (At­lanta Unit­ed/USA), An­dre For­tune II (Nomme JK Kalju/Es­to­nia), Nathaniel Gar­cia (Point Fortin Civic), Kris­t­ian Lee-Him (IFK Es­kil­stu­na/Swe­den), Matthew Woo Ling (Mi­a­mi Unit­ed/USA), Ataulla Guer­ra (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Du­ane Muck­ette (AC PoS), Luke Phillip (Club San­do), Re­on Moore (De­fence Force), John-Paul Rochford (AC PoS), Justin Sadoo (De­fence Force), Kai­him Thomas (De­fence Force), Jo­mal Williams (Once De­porti­vo), Che Ben­ny (AC PoS).

For­wards: Mal­colm Shaw (Atketi­co Ot­tawa/Cana­da), Isa­iah Gar­cia (Point Fortin Civic), Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace/Eng­land), Nicholas Dil­lon (Club San­do), Kadeem Corbin (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers).