T&T ‘So­ca War­riors’ coach Dwight Yorke will be hop­ing for his first win in three out­ings in charge of the na­tion­al se­nior men’s team when they tack­le Ja­maica for the sec­ond time in three days in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly.

Sun­day’s en­counter will take place at the An­tho­ny Spauld­ing Sports Com­plex in Kingston, Ja­maica, from 9 pm and comes on the heels of the ‘Reg­gae Boyz’ 1-0 win on Thurs­day at the Mon­tego Bay Sports Com­plex cour­tesy of an 84th-minute goal from 32-year-old Mount Pleas­ant de­fend­er Sue-Lae Mc­Calla, the team­mate of T&T’s Nathaniel James.

A for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed and T&T strik­er, Yorke took charge of the ‘So­ca War­riors’ late last year fol­low­ing the part­ing of ways with for­mer coach and his in­ter­na­tion­al team­mate An­gus Eve and the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion.

How­ev­er, in his first match as team coach, the So­ca War­riors, ranked 102nd in the world, went un­der to host and 59th-ranked Sau­di Ara­bia 3-1 on De­cem­ber 17, which was fol­lowed by the nar­row loss to the ‘Reg­gae Boyz.’

Speak­ing in the Ja­maica Glean­er, Yorke was quot­ed as say­ing he ex­pects his team to show im­prove­ment in the sec­ond game.

“We know we came here to play two games. We haven’t got a lot of turn­around time. We’re go­ing to go and re­view it (the open­ing game) and look at the op­tions. We need to look at play­ers and see where they are. We are ex­pect­ed to im­prove as a team, and that’s what we’re hop­ing to do,” added Yorke dur­ing the press con­fer­ence af­ter the first match on Thurs­day night.

T&T cap­tain, who made his re­turn to the in­ter­na­tion­al scene in Sau­di Ara­bia af­ter al­most two years away, said the team had a great show­ing in the first match, es­pe­cial­ly in the first half, where the team kept the ball and worked to the plan that the coach wants them to get fa­mil­iar with.”

Look­ing ahead to to­day’s match, Moli­no, 34, said, “We get an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to play again on Sun­day to show­case our tal­ent and show what we need to do.”

With an eye to­wards the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup Pre­lim­i­nary round home-and-away tie against Cu­ba set for next month, Moli­no not­ed the im­por­tance of the match, say­ing, “It’s crunch time now as it’s the on­ly re­main­ing game be­fore the up­com­ing match­es in March, and we are just look­ing for­ward to it.”

The for­mer Min­neso­ta Unit­ed and US Ma­jor League Soc­cer cham­pi­on with Colum­bus Crew, Moli­no, the joint lead­ing scor­er in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I with team­mate Isa­iah Lea­cock, both with ten goals, praised his De­fence Force coach­ing staff and team­mates for help­ing him get back to his near top form.

He said, I must give cred­it to coach Den­sill Theobald and as­sis­tant De­vorn Jorsling as well as my team­mates for push­ing me to get as close to the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el of fit­ness that I need to be at.”

“I’m not quite there yet, but I’m get­ting there as it’s a work in progress, and I’m very hap­py to wear the na­tion­al colours again,” he stat­ed.

Ja­maica’s head coach, Steve Mc­Claren, was al­so look­ing for­ward to the sec­ond match be­tween both na­tions and said he is hope­ful that the squad can re­peat the re­sult.

“The en­er­gy that the sub­sti­tutes brought, we need that again on Sun­day (to­day). We’ve got quite a few knocks, quite a few tired play­ers. So yeah, we look, we re­assess, and we pick a team on Sat­ur­day (yes­ter­day) that can re­peat the re­sult on Sun­day,” Mc­Claren said.

The squad is made up of most­ly lo­cal play­ers be­cause the games do not fall in a FI­FA-ap­proved in­ter­na­tion­al win­dow.

Thurs­day’s vic­to­ry was the first at home for the Ja­maicans when they edged Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic 1-0 on June 6 last year in a World Cup Qual­i­fi­er, while it stretched T&T’s win­less run against the ‘Reg­gae Boyz’ to five match­es, with the last win com­ing via a Re­on Moore 67th strike in a March 2023 in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly un­der pre­vi­ous coach Eve.

Since then, the ‘Reg­gae Boyz’ and T&T drew 0-0 in the sec­ond match of that two-match se­ries in March 2023 be­fore Ja­maica won 4-1 at the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup in the USA, fol­lowed by a 0-0 draw and 1-0 for Ja­maica last March in an­oth­er two-match se­ries.

Both Ja­maica and Trinidad and To­ba­go are get­ting ready for some very im­por­tant as­sign­ments lat­er this year, in­clud­ing the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup and World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

How­ev­er, be­fore re­sum­ing World Cup qual­i­fy­ing, Yorke and the ‘So­ca War­riors’ al­so have a home-and-away se­ries against Cu­ba in a 2025 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup Pre­lim­i­nary matchup next month (March) with a place in the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup main draw at stake.

The clash against the Cubans comes on the heels of the So­ca War­riors’ 2-2 away draw and 3-1 home win against the same op­po­nents in their 2024/25 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A cam­paign un­der in­ter­im coach Derek King last Oc­to­ber.