Na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke has re­cruit­ed Unit­ed States-based strik­er Roald Mitchell and mid­field­er Lin­dell Sween to his 26-man team for the up­com­ing World Cup Qual­i­fiers against Ja­maica on Thurs­day and then Bermu­da next Tues­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.

Mean­while, de­fend­er Rio Car­dines and mid­field­er Mo­lik Khan will miss out due to in­jury.

​Mitchell is a 22-year-old who rep­re­sents the New York Red Bulls in Ma­jor League Soc­cer (MLS). ​He signed for the New York Red Bulls on a three-year con­tract, which is ex­pect­ed to run through 2026, with an op­tion for 2027 and 2028. The con­tract made him the 34th home­grown sign­ing in fran­chise his­to­ry.

Mitchell, a for­ward from Wake For­est Uni­ver­si­ty, was a starter for the Wake For­est De­mon Dea­cons, ap­pear­ing in 56 ca­reer match­es and scor­ing 19 goals and nine as­sists. He is a two-time All-ACC Sec­ond Team se­lec­tion who has been part of the Red Bull Acad­e­my from 2018 to 2021.

Yorke be­gan prepa­ra­tion ear­ly with a se­ries of closed-door ses­sions. He told the me­dia re­cent­ly that he want­ed to see a num­ber of play­ers in the MLS sys­tem due to the clo­sure of the League, not­ing that he want­ed to en­sure the play­ers main­tain their fit­ness lev­els.

In a prac­tice game be­tween the T&T team and an All-Star Team, the game end­ed 2-2 with both goals for the na­tion­al team com­ing from Tyrese Spicer, while the pair of Ja­heim Faustin and Lin­dell Sween scored for the All Stars. Sween, a for­mer mid­field­er for San Juan North Sec­ondary School, now rep­re­sents San Juan Jabloteh in Tier 1 of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League.

Up­on his re­turn from a three-month loan spell in Eu­rope re­cent­ly, he earned a re­call from Yorke for the qual­i­fy­ing match­es. Sween was al­so part of the na­tion­al team set-up ear­ly in Yorke’s for­ay as coach.

​With just five points from four match­es, Yorke and his charges are des­per­ate to win both match­es for a re­al­is­tic chance of qual­i­fy­ing. Math­e­mat­i­cal­ly, vic­to­ries against Ja­maica and Bermu­da will push them to 11 points, but they will al­so be de­pen­dent on Bermu­da to re­strict Cu­ra­cao by way of a draw or a de­feat for a chance of top­ping the group.

​Oth­er­wise, an equal­ly chal­leng­ing task awaits the lo­cal team in a play-off, which will first re­quire them to be one of the two best sec­ond-place teams among the group stage. The slot al­lo­ca­tion for the in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion play-offs was con­firmed by the FI­FA Coun­cil in 2017, with each con­fed­er­a­tion re­ceiv­ing one play-off slot, with the ex­cep­tion of UE­FA, and an ad­di­tion­al play-off slot al­so giv­en to the con­fed­er­a­tion of the host as­so­ci­a­tion.

As Cana­da, Mex­i­co, and the Unit­ed States were lat­er ap­point­ed as hosts, two slots were giv­en, while the AFC, CAF, CON­MEBOL, and the OFC each re­ceived one. The play-offs will fea­ture six teams, split in­to two brack­ets of three teams, with both brack­et win­ners qual­i­fy­ing for the World Cup. The teams will be seed­ed in­to brack­ets based on their FI­FA world rank­ing. Each brack­et will fea­ture two un­seed­ed teams fac­ing each oth­er in a semi­fi­nal, with the win­ner ad­vanc­ing to the play-off fi­nal against a seed­ed team.

Yorke told the me­dia last week that his play­ers will have to be at their very best against the Ja­maicans, as they have al­ready closed the gap on their re­gion­al coun­ter­parts.

De­fend­er Ko­bi Hen­ry said he con­fi­dent as the morale in the team is high, how­ev­er, he urged that play­ing at home will give them the chance at a quick start.

"The morale is high in the camp, every­one is ex­cit­ed to be back. We know what we're com­pet­ing for so I think, per­son­al­ly it's about show­ing up, and as a group it's about who wants it more. It's a big game, like every game we've played so far, but this is prob­a­bly the most im­por­tant one, so we know how much it's worth, not on­ly for our team but for the coun­try. One thing we have to im­prove is to come out there from the first half and set the tone, and not wait to get in­to the game but now we're at home we have every­thing geared to­wards us so we can start strong from the be­gin­ning."

Al­so in the team are mid­field­er Daniel David, Nathaniel James, Noah Pow­der, Re­al Gill, Wayne Fred­er­ick II, Kaile Au­vray, and Kevin Moli­no, who con­tin­ues to im­press in the cen­tre of the park with the lone goal for the De­fence Force Elite in a 1-0 vic­to­ry over Mt Pleas­ant FC in their re­cent Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup semi­fi­nal.

T&T squad

Goak­l­keep­ers: Den­zil Smith, Mar­vin Phillip, Jabari Brice

Mid­field­ers: Lin­dell Sween, Daniel David, Nathaniel James, Noah Pow­der, Re­al Gill, Stef­fen Yeates, Tyrese Spicer, Wayne Fred­er­ick II, Kevin Moli­no, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Daniel Phillips, Kaile Au­vray

For­wards: Roald Mitchell, Levi Gar­cia, Dante Sealy, Eyan Telfer

De­fend­ers: Justin Gar­cia, An­dre Ray­mond, Ko­bi Hen­ry, Deron Payne, Isa­iah Gar­cia, Jer­rin Jack­ie, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham

Ja­maica

Goal­keep­ers: An­dre Bak­er, Jah­mali Waite, Ta­fari Cham­bers

De­fend­ers: Joel Lat­i­beaudiere, Ethan Pin­nock, Richard King, Dex­ter Lem­bik­isa, Gre­go­ry Leigh, Dami­an Lowe, Ri­co Hen­ry,Ma­son Hol­gate, Ian Fray

Mid­field­ers: Isaac Hay­den, Bob­by Reid, Jonathan Rus­sell, Karoy An­der­son, Jahshaun An­glin

For­wards: Bai­ley-Tye Cadamar­teri, Shamar Nichol­son, Ru­marn Bur­rell, De­marai Gray, Ka­heim Dixon, Re­nal­do Cephas, Tyreece Camp­bell, Warn­er Brown, Du­juan Richards