It's going to be a battle to the end for the T&T Soca Warriors at 9 pm on Tuesday night (June 10) when they face Costa Rica at the Estadio Nacional de Costa Rica in San Jose in the final Group B contest of the Concacaf World Cup Qualifiers.
National coach Dwight Yorke said at a press conference Monday (June 9) that while he expects a competitive game, as history has always shown between the teams, he hopes to get the better of the Costa Rican at home this time.
The Warriors are fresh off a 6-2 victory over St Kitts & Nevis at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain on Friday, but they need at least a point today to be sure of a second-placed finish in the group.
With seven points from three matches, the local team can top the group with a win over the home team, but regional rival Grenada can create some discomfort should they win against St Kitts & Nevis from 3 pm at Warner Park in Basseterre, a result that will take them level on points with T&T on seven.
In T&T's favour, though, a loss for T&T Tuesday night would require the Grenadians to beat St Kitts & Nevis by a huge margin, to get the better on goal difference.
Yorke's main concern is the usual slow start, which forces his team to concede early goals and chase afterwards.
"We are still developing in those areas. We always seem to be a team, which I consider a reactive team rather than a proactive team, which means that we always seem to concede and then go after teams to try and win a game.
"But even though, we are getting better in those areas, these are the kind of games that you have to try and have clean sheets, in terms of trying to win games. It's an area that we're trying to improve in other words, but we know that there's a lot of work to be done in that area," Yorke explained.
The top two teams from Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F will advance to a final home-and-away play-off of 12, where the teams will play in three groups of four teams. From these playoffs, the winning team in each group will qualify for the World Cup, while the best second-placed team will advance to a play-off with the other continents.
Yorke, taken back to the 1989 World Cup campaign in which the Costa Ricans were held 1-1 by the T&T team in the first match but won the second match 1-0 before moving on to top the final-round qualifiers and qualified for the World Cup in Italy, said he was a young boy at age 18 and didn't understand the concept of professional football.
He told the media that now, as the coach of the T&T team, he understands what it takes to come to Costa Rica and then to get a result, saying: "I expect my team to compete at all levels and we will, I can assure you that. So, I expect the two teams to go at each other, and maybe on this occasion we will get the better of Costa Rica at home."
The last time the two teams met was back in 2017 when Costa Rica won 2-1 in a tense battle. Yorke said he is expecting the same kind of match tonight.
The Costa Ricans are set to be boosted by the return of veteran goalkeeper Keylor Navas, who has come out of retirement.
GROUP B MATCHES
T&T vs Costa Rica, Estadio Nacional de Cost Rica, San Jose, 9 pm
Grenada vs St Kitts & Nevis, Warner Park, Basseterre, 3 pm
STANDINGS
Team*PTS*MP*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD
1*Costa Rica*9*3*3*0*0*15*0*15
2*T&T*7*3*2*0*1*15*5*10
3*Grenada*4*3*1*1*1*8*5*3
4*Saint Kitts & Nevis*3*3*1*2*0*3*10*-7
5*Bahamas*0*4*0*4*0*1*22*-21
