T&T se­nior men’s foot­ball team coach Dwight Yorke is ex­pect­ed to wel­come the core of over­seas-based play­ers from to­day as the So­ca War­riors be­gin prepa­ra­tions for their coun­try’s Group B Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round 2026 World Cup Qual­i­fi­er against Cu­ra­cao at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day from 8 pm.

The na­tion­al men’s team will then jour­ney to Ja­maica on Sep­tem­ber 9 for a clash with the Ja­maica “Reg­gae Boyz” at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Kingston from 8 pm (7 pm lo­cal time).

Last week, Yorke named a pro­vi­sion squad of 35 play­ers for the two match­es, in­clu­sive of the un­capped trio of de­fend­ers Ko­bi Hen­ry, Deron Payne and Jer­ron Jack­ie.

The 21-year-old Hen­ry was born in the Unit­ed States to T&T par­ents and rep­re­sent­ed the USA at Un­der-17, U-19 and U-20 lev­els, mak­ing sev­en youth ap­pear­ances. He was called up to the USA se­nior camp in De­cem­ber 2021 but did not ap­pear in the game against Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina.

In Jan­u­ary, he was snapped up by US Ma­jor League Soc­cer’s (MLS) Re­al Salt Lake from French side Reims via loan for the 2025 MLS sea­son and cur­rent­ly plays with Re­al Mon­archs in the MLS Next Pro. He signed his first pro­fes­sion­al con­tract at age 16, with Or­ange Coun­ty SC in June 2020, fol­low­ing youth stints with both the Or­lan­do City and In­ter Mi­a­mi youth acad­e­mies.

Hen­ry comes from an ath­let­ic fam­i­ly, with his fa­ther be­ing a for­mer se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play­er, while his moth­er did track and field. His grand­fa­ther, Ken Hen­ry, was a strength and con­di­tion­ing coach for the na­tion­al team.

Payne cam­paigns for FC Volen­dam in the Dutch Ere­di­visie and plays as a right-back. The 22-year-old, who is in the fi­nal year of a three-year con­tract with Volen­dam, made his Ere­di­visie de­but for Volen­dam on No­vem­ber 6, 2022, in a game against Feyeno­ord and was born in the Nether­lands to a Trinida­di­an fa­ther and Dutch moth­er. He is the younger broth­er of the de­fend­er De­se­vio Payne, 29, who plays for Konin­klijke FC in the Dutch Tweede Di­visie, the high­est am­a­teur league in Hol­land.

Jack­ie, 24, is a for­mer Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do cen­tre-back who scored a 48th-minute penal­ty in his Por­tu­gal club’s CD Gou­veia 2-1 loss to Re­sende in the Por­tuguese foot­ball league, Campe­ona­to de Por­tu­gal.

Among the ear­ly ar­rivals to­day for the start of the live-in camp are ex­pect­ed to be Hen­ry, Pane and Jack­ie, along with Levi Gar­cia (Spar­tak Moscow/Rus­sia), Justin Gar­cia (Song Lam Nghe An/Viet­nam), Dante Sealy (CF Mon­tre­al/USA), Greg Ran­jits­ingh (New York City/USA), Den­zil Smith (AV Al­ta FC/USA), Tris­ton Hodge (North Car­oli­na FC/USA), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land), Nathaniel James (Port­land Hearts of Pine/USA), Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids/USA), Re­al Gill (Huntsville City FC/USA), Noah Pow­der (Westch­ester FC/USA) and Justin Obik­wu (Coven­try City/Eng­land).

How­ev­er, a few play­ers were in­volved with their re­spec­tive clubs in do­mes­tic com­pe­ti­tions over the week­end and will join the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers head­ed by cap­tain Kevin Moli­no of T&T De­fence Force Elite, along with Mar­vin Phillip (Cen­tral FC), Jabari St Hillaire (De­fence Force), Jabari Brice (Cen­tral FC), Dar­nell Hospedales, Alvin Jones (Cen­tral FC), Isa­iah Gar­cia (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Ja­mal Jack (Cen­tral FC), Kai­him Thomas (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Cur­tis Gon­za­les (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Isa­iah Lee (Cen­tral FC), and Isa­iah Lea­cock (T&T De­fence Force Elite).