It will be a bat­tle of two pro­por­tions when the T&T So­ca War­riors take the field against Cu­ba in the CON­CA­CAF Na­tion­al League at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go on Mon­day night from 9 pm. 

Not on­ly will it be a scram­ble for pride, hav­ing gone win­less to date in the tour­na­ment with a loss 4-0 to Hon­duras and drawn ac­counts against French Guiana 0-0 and Cu­ba 2-2, but it will be a bat­tle for sur­vival in League A of the Tour­na­ment. 

The fifth and sixth-place teams would be rel­e­gat­ed to League B, where the coun­try had risen from un­der for­mer coach An­gus Eve in 2022 and be­fore he was fired in Ju­ly this year.

Care­take coach Derek King, who re­placed Eve as the in­ter­im coach un­til the se­lec­tion of a new coach soon, as­sured a win tonight would pre­vent such a de­mo­tion. 

But he called on his charges to con­vert the chances when they come, as he sought to re­in­force that goals are what win match­es at the press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day af­ter­noon. 

On Thurs­day last, King, who was one of Eve’s as­sis­tants watched on al­most help­less­ly as his team twice scored first but squan­dered chances in droves in San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba, be­fore the home team se­cured a share of the points with a 2-2 tie. 

How­ev­er, King said yes­ter­day, “Things went well with our prepa­ra­tions; we know the im­por­tance of get­ting a vic­to­ry to­mor­row (to­day), and three points is enough for us to stay in the A-League. We will tweak the sys­tem a bit; we have one or two play­ers com­ing in as well, and we know the im­por­tance of get­ting three points to­mor­row, please God.” 

“Just analysing the games, I think we’re get­ting the chances; it’s just for us to put them away be­cause goals win match­es. We al­so have to de­fend well, and once we de­fend well and cre­ate the chances and score, we will be al­right.” 

“Last game, cred­it to the guys; they went out and played, but as I said at in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball, one mis­take will cost you the game. I think de­fen­sive­ly we were not that sol­id, so I think the play­ers know what it gives and what it takes now to get the three points,” King told the me­dia. 

Mean­while, An­dre Ram­per­sad, the HFX Wan­der­ers de­fen­sive mid­field­er who ac­com­pa­nied King at the pre-game con­fer­ence, echoed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, call­ing for more clin­i­cal fin­ish­ing tonight. But he as­sured them all that they would do any­thing to get the re­sult they need­ed tonight. 

“We need to be more clin­i­cal in the fi­nal third; we need to be more sol­id de­fen­sive­ly, and I think, echo­ing what the coach said, our prepa­ra­tion has been pos­i­tive. The vibes in the camp are re­al­ly good, and the play­ers know the im­por­tance of the game, so com­ing out to­mor­row (to­day), we’re go­ing to do every­thing in our pow­er to get the re­sult that we need.”