Na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke is promis­ing no ex­cus­es and no hid­ing places when his play­ers take on Bermu­da in a cru­cial, fi­nal-round World Cup qual­i­fi­er against Bermu­da on Fri­day at 6 pm at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um, Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre in North Shore, Bermu­da.

His charges have been ow­ing big times af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing goal­less tie against Cu­ra­cao at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Sep­tem­ber, fol­lowed by a heart­break­ing 2-0 loss to re­gion­al ri­vals Ja­maica, which has placed them in a spot of both­er, as they now have to win their next four match­es to earn au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the World Cup out of Group B.

Yorke and his play­ers spent the past few days at a live-in camp in Mi­a­mi, most­ly pon­der­ing and prepar­ing for a match that will ei­ther en­able them to con­tin­ue with the cam­paign or call it a day. On­ly a win will be re­quired.

Yorke, who took up coach­ing du­ties al­most a year ago (No­vem­ber 2024), claimed on Thurs­day that the team as his, hav­ing com­plet­ed more than 10 months of work with them, as he sought to as­sure the me­dia that now is the time – “There is no hid­ing place, no ex­cus­es. I think now is the time for the team to de­liv­er it,” Yorke said.

Dri­ven by a na­tion ea­ger for a taste of more World Cup qual­i­fy­ing ac­tion, as hap­pened back in 2005, the team has been a pic­ture of fo­cus, as it emerged from a camp in Mi­a­mi on­to the shores of Bermu­da, where a bat­tle awaits both teams. Yorke, still to make his name in the area of coach­ing, said, “It has been a fan­tas­tic cou­ple of days. Been able to do some work be­hind the scenes with the team. Of course, we’re very ex­cit­ed and en­er­gised by the chal­lenge ahead; there are no two ways about it, but the mes­sage is very clear: we’re at a very crit­i­cal stage and a vi­tal stage of the cam­paign, so we know that com­ing in­to this game – Bermu­da – is al­ways go­ing to be a chal­lenge for us, so we made sure that we pre­pared ex­treme­ly well, so the chal­lenge will be that we make sure and get three points against Bermu­da.”

He said, “I think it’s im­por­tant that we not get car­ried away by any of the op­po­si­tion. We know that we have to be at our very best to get re­sults. And com­ing in­to this game, we know that we re­spect Bermu­da a lot, but we need three points, and the mes­sage is very clear that we need to be ab­solute­ly 100 per cent in terms of our per­for­mance, our at­ti­tude, and our mind­set. We take Bermu­da with a pinch of salt, with a lot of cred­i­bil­i­ty, and there should be no com­pla­cen­cy in the team what­so­ev­er.”

“We know what’s at stake; we know that we have to per­form at our very best to over­come Bermu­da. I am re­al­ly ex­cit­ed; I am en­er­gised by it, and I’m al­so very en­cour­aged, al­though re­sults may not have gone our way, but they’re be­hind us now. It’s what we can con­trol that’s in front of us at the mo­ment. Bermu­da is our first en­counter, and we look for­ward to that. And I am sure we’re qui­et­ly con­fi­dent that we can get the job done and get three points to get us back in­to the thick of things in our group,” Yorke ex­plained.

The T&T team has al­so been boost­ed by the call-up of four play­ers, in­clu­sive of de­fend­er Deron Payne and Mo­lik Khan.

“We’ve been mon­i­tor­ing these guys for some time now, and it’s ab­solute­ly fan­tas­tic to add them to the squad. And what that means is that we add more val­ue and much more qual­i­ty, and the com­pe­ti­tion for places is get­ting re­al­ly in­tense,” Yorke ex­plained.

The Bermu­dans were thrashed by Ja­maica 4-0 in their open­ing match of the qual­i­fiers, fol­low­ing which an im­proved per­for­mance saw them end­ing per­ilous­ly close to their first point, in a 3-2 loss to Cu­ra­cao.

TT SQUAD

Wayne Fred­er­ick II, Dante Sealy, Justin Obik­wu, Justin Gar­cia, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Rio Car­dines, Re­al Gill, Jabari St Hillaire, Den­zil Smith, Noah Pow­der, Kaile Au­vray, Isa­iah Lee, Mo­lik Khan, Jabari Brice, Deron Payne, Ko­bi Hen­ry, Jer­rin Jack­ie, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Stef­fen Yeates, Daniel Phillips, Nathaniel James, Kevin Moli­no, Levi Gar­cia, Ryan Telfer, Tyrese Spicer

BERMU­DA:

GOAL­KEEP­ERS:

Dale Eve, De­tre Bell, Co­leridge Fubler

DE­FEND­ERS

Dante Liv­e­rock, Kieron Richard­son, Har­ry Twite, Reese Jones, J’Nai But­ter­field-Steede, Ju­lian Car­pen­ter, Justin Don­awa, Le­jaun Sim­mons, Deniche Hill

MID­FIELD­ERS

Aun­de Todd, Willie Clemons, Rahzir Smith-Jones, Roger Lee, Ne-Jai Tuck­er

FOR­WARS

Nah­ki Wells, Kane Crichlow, Zeiko Lewis, Reg­gie Lambe, Djair Parfitt, En­rique Rus­sell