T&T So­ca War­riors booked a spot in the third and fi­nal round of the 2026 FI­FA World Cup Con­ca­caf qual­i­fi­ca­tion for the first time since 2017, de­spite a 2-1 loss away to Cos­ta Ri­ca in their fi­nal match of the sec­ond round Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B qual­i­fi­er at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional in San Jose, Cos­ta Ri­ca, on Tues­day night.

Go­ing in­to the match, the Dwight Yorke-coached "So­ca War­riors" could have af­ford­ed to lose by six goals and still ad­vance due to a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence to Grena­da, which de­feat­ed St Kitts & Nevis 3-2 in an ear­li­er match on Tues­day.

But cred­it to the So­ca War­riors, who had tast­ed de­feat in six of their last sev­en meet­ings with the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans as they start­ed on the at­tack, pin­ning the host back and keep­ing the crowd silent, a move which would have pleased for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed strik­er and T&T World Cup 2006 cap­tain Yorke.

For the fi­nal group match, coach Yorke made three changes from his start­ing team which whipped St Kitts & Nevis 6-2 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, with goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip com­ing in for Den­zil Smith, who picked up a slight knock in the pre-match warm-ups, while right-back Isa­iah Gar­cia of the De­fence Force re­placed Ja­maica-based Dar­nell Hospedales, and At­lanta Unit­ed's Ajani For­tune came in for An­dre Ram­per­sad in mid­field.

The vis­i­tors start­ed bright­ly, with Spar­tak Moscow's Levi Gar­cia, CF Mon­tre­al's Dante Sealy and Shel­don Bateau all hav­ing at­tempts on goal for the So­ca War­riors.

How­ev­er, all the good work in the open­ing pe­ri­od of play by coach Yorke's men was un­done in the 23rd minute when a left-sided Fran­cis­co Cal­vo cross found un­marked Jey­land Mitchell be­tween T&T de­fend­ers Alvin Jones and Shel­don Bateau to head past vet­er­an goal­keep­er Phillip in­to the roof of the net for a 1-0 lead.

The "Ticos" were now smelling blood and be­gan to bom­bard the T&T goal, with Phillip be­ing called in­to ac­tion to make a dou­ble save in the 26th minute, first off a right-foot­ed blast from Josi­mar Alo­co­er and then the fol­low-up head­ed ef­fort from point-blank range by War­ren Madri­gal.

With­in three min­utes, Phillip, play­ing in his 95th match for the So­ca War­riors was called in­to ac­tion again, this time div­ing low to his left at full stretch to push wide a glanc­ing head­er.

At the oth­er end of the field, T&T's bright start had fad­ed great­ly, with Gar­cia be­ing iso­lat­ed against three de­fend­ers at most times in his quest to get his team on the score­sheet, with one such move end­ing in a high left-foot­ed ef­fort over Cos­ta Ri­ca cus­to­di­an Key­lor Navas' first post.

Sev­en min­utes be­fore the in­ter­val, Phillip could do lit­tle to stop the Cos­ta Ri­cans from dou­bling their lead, though, when Madri­gal was on the spot to turn home a right-sided cen­tre from Ale­jan­dro Bran, who was put through down the T&T left flank by a clever short pass from Cal­vo.

On the re­sump­tion, Yorke in­tro­duced USA-based Noah Pow­der in mid­field for Fri­day night's stand­out play­er, Dante Sealy, while Hospedales re­placed Car­dines to add some mus­cle to the de­fence, and once again the So­ca War­riors start­ed on the front foot with Gar­cia test­ing Navas with a low left-foot­ed dri­ve from just out­side the 18-yard box, fol­lowed by some ner­vous mo­ments in the host 18-yard box as they failed to deal with some cross­es whipped in­to the area.

T&T even­tu­al­ly pulled a goal back, and de­served­ly so, in the 57th minute when Moli­no thread­ed a pass be­tween two Cos­ta Ri­can de­fend­ers for Gar­cia (L), who took the ball in stride on his weak­er right foot and blast­ed past Navas on his near post for his sec­ond goal in as many match­es since mak­ing his re­turn to the team af­ter a year ab­sence.

Yorke made an­oth­er pos­i­tive sub­sti­tu­tion, in­tro­duc­ing Cana­da-based Stef­fen Yeates for Eng­land-based mid­field­er Daniel Phillips, as he tried to add some en­er­gy to his team's mid­field, but it was one of his own in­tro­duc­tions, Hospedales, who al­most helped Cos­ta Ri­ca ex­tend their lead when his head­er to cut out a flight­ed cross al­most caught out Phillips.

T&T then suf­fered a blow when de­fend­er Alvin Jones, who was cau­tioned in the 14th minute by Mex­i­can ref­er­ee Daniel Quin­tero, was is­sued a sec­ond yel­low in the 70th minute for an­oth­er foul, leav­ing his team to fight the re­main­ing 13 min­utes of reg­u­la­tion time and what­ev­er was added.

Phillip did his best to keep his team in the match, as from the re­sult­ing free kick, Bran forced the T&T cus­to­di­an in­to a div­ing save to his left, while in the dy­ing stages, Cos­ta Ri­ca had a goal dis­al­lowed as well as an at­tempt ric­o­chet off the cross­bar as they se­cured the hard-fought win to fin­ish top of the five-team pool with a max­i­mum of 12 points, five more than the So­ca War­riors and Grena­da.

How­ev­er, the So­ca War­riors, who will now turn their at­ten­tion to the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup where they meet host USA, Haiti and Sau­di Ara­bia in their round-robin group as­sign­ments, end­ed as group run­ners-up due to a su­pe­ri­or goal dif­fer­ence of plus nine to their ri­val Grena­da plus four.

Ear­li­er on Tues­day, Grena­da kept their hopes of ad­vanc­ing to the third and fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers with a come-from-be­hind 3-2 win over host St Kitts & Nevis.

Tyrese Simp­son put the host ahead at the Warn­er Park Sta­di­um in the 34th minute, which his team took in­to the half-time in­ter­val, af­ter which Grena­da fired three goals with­out re­ply in the sec­ond half via goals from Re­gan Charles-Cook in the 48th and Jer­maine Fran­cis in the 78th be­fore Dar­ius John­son added the third item in the 90+1 to seal the win.

How­ev­er, Ro­maine Sawyers got a sec­ond for St Kitts & Nevis four min­utes in­to time added on to give his team faint hopes of snatch­ing a late draw, but in the end, Grena­da held on for the three points.

On Thurs­day (June 12), the 12 teams to de­ter­mine the three groups of four teams will com­pete on a home-and-away round-robin ba­sis and will be drawn.

The teams in the draw at the con­clu­sion of the sec­ond-round qual­i­fi­er for next year's FI­FA World Cup joint­ly host­ed by the USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co are Group A (Hon­duras, Bermu­da); Group B (Cos­ta Ri­ca, T&T); Group C (Cu­ra­cao, Haiti); Group D (Pana­ma, Nicaragua); Group E (Ja­maica, Guatemala) and Group F (Suri­name, El Sal­vador).

In ad­di­tion, the two best-ranked run­ners-up from the three groups will ad­vance to the In­ter-Con­fed­er­a­tion play-offs where they will be.

joined by one team each from AFC, CAF, CON­MEBOL and OFC in the in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion play-offs.

The teams will be ranked ac­cord­ing to the FI­FA Men's World Rank­ing, with the four low­est-ranked teams play­ing in two sin­gle-elim­i­na­tion match­es.

The win­ners will meet the two high­est-ranked teams in an­oth­er set of sin­gle-elim­i­na­tion match­es, with the win­ners of these match­es qual­i­fy­ing for the 2026 FI­FA World Cup.

T&T line-up:

1. Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 3. Isa­iah Gar­cia, 17. Rio Car­dines (2. Dar­nell Hospedales 46th), 5. Shel­don Bateau, 8. Daniel Phillips (7. Stef­fen Yeates 68th), 10. Kevin Moli­no (capt) (18. An­dre Ram­per­sad 84th), 11. Levi Gar­cia (9. Nathaniel James 84th), 13. Tyrese Spicer, 15. Dante Sealy (23. Noah Pow­der 46th), 16. Alvin Jones, 19. Ajani For­tune.

Subs not used: 21. Jabari St Hillaire (GK), 22. Den­zil Smith (GK), 4. Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, 6. An­dre Ray­mond, 12. Isa­iah Lea­cock, 14. Wayne Fred­er­ick II, 20. Re­al Gill,

Coach: Dwight Yorke

Cos­ta Ri­ca line-up:

1. Key­lor Navas, 3. Jey­land Mitchell, 4. Juan Pablo Var­gas (5. Fer­nan Faer­ron 51st), 8. Joseph Mo­ra, 9. Man­fred Ugalde (21. Al­varo Zamo­ra 87th) 14. Or­lan­do Ga­lo, 15. Fran­cis­co Cal­vo, 16. Ale­jan­dro Bran, 17. War­ren Madri­gal (7. Andy Ro­jas 78th), 20. Josi­mar Al­co­cer (Ken­neth Var­gas 87th), 22. Car­los Mo­ra

Subs not used: 18. Alexan­dre Lez­cano (GK), 23. Patrick Se­queira (GK), 2. San­ti­a­go Van Der Put­ten, 5. Fer­nan Faer­ron, 6. Alex­is Gam­boa,, 10. Cristo­pher Nunez, 11. Ariel Las­siter, 12. Ke­nay Myrie, 13. Jef­fer­son Brenes,

Coach:Miguel Her­rera

Fi­nal Sec­ond Round Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B stand­ings

Pos*Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1.Cos­ta Ri­ca*4*4*0*0*17*1*16*12

2.T&T*4*2*1*1*16*7*9*7

3.Grena­da*4*2*1*1*11*7*4*7

4. St Kitts & Nevis*4*1*0*3*5*13*-8*3

5. Ba­hamas*4*0*0*4*1*22*-21*0

Third Round Con­ca­caf World Cup Qual­i­fiers Match Dates:

Match­day 1 & 2: Sep­tem­ber, 1-9

Match­day 3 & 4: Oc­to­ber, 6-14

Match­day 5 & 6: No­vem­ber, 10-18