T&T So­ca War­riors coach Dwight Yorke will be go­ing all out to se­cure three points when they host St Kitts & Nevis in their penul­ti­mate Sec­ond Round Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B qual­i­fi­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Fri­day from 7.30 pm.

The So­ca War­riors go in­to the en­counter sec­ond in the five-team pool stand­ings, four points from two match­es, the same as Grena­da, who has played a match more, and two points be­hind Cos­ta Ri­ca, who trav­els to the Ba­hamas on Sat­ur­day for their third match.

For the fi­nal match day on Tues­day, T&T will trav­el to Cos­ta Ri­ca while St Kitts & Nevis, who sit third in the group with three points, host Grena­da, and at the end of the round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the next stage of the CON­CA­CAF World Cup qual­i­fiers.

This means the con­test is a must-win for T&T if they want to make their task of qual­i­fi­ca­tion much eas­i­er ahead of the meet­ing with Cos­ta Ri­ca.

The So­ca War­riors, though, will start as heavy favourites against the ‘Sug­ar Boyz’ and have reg­is­tered nine straight wins over their op­po­nents by a com­bined 23 goals to six, in­clu­sive of four shutouts, three of which have come in the last three match­es, 1-0, 2-0 and 3-0 wins, the lat­ter at the 2023 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup.

Coach Yorke named a 26-man squad which in­clud­ed one un­capped play­er, 22-year-old CF Mon­tre­al winger Dante Sealy, along with 20-year-old Wayne Fred­er­ick II, who is the son of Wayne A. I. Fred­er­ick, the for­mer pres­i­dent of Howard Uni­ver­si­ty in the USA, and was the sec­ond over­all pick in the MLS Su­per Draft in 2024 be­hind coun­try and team­mate Tyrese Spicer.

The oth­er over­seas-based play­ers named in the squad by Yorke in­clude goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith; de­fend­ers Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Alvin Jones, Shel­don Bateau, and Dar­nell Hospedales; mid­field­ers Stef­fen Yeates, Daniel Phillips, Nathaniel James, Tyrese Spicer, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Ajani For­tune, Re­al Gill, Rio Car­dines, and Noah Pow­der; and for­ward Levi Gar­cia.

The rest of the team com­pris­es eight lo­cal play­ers: goal­keep­ers Mar­vin Phillip and Jabari St Hillaire; mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones; strik­er Isa­iah Lee; and the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I cham­pi­ons De­fence Force’s quar­tet of Isa­iah Gar­cia, Isa­iah Lea­cock, Kai­him Thomas and cap­tain Kevin Moli­no.

Speak­ing pri­or to his team’s fi­nal train­ing at the match venue yes­ter­day, a con­fi­dent Moli­no said his team was ex­cit­ed and ready.

Moli­no, 34, with 65 ap­pear­ances for the na­tion­al team and 25 goals, said, “The mood in the camp is ex­cit­ed. We haven’t played at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um for a while, and we are an­tic­i­pat­ing a good turnout of sup­port­ers.

He added, “All the new guys that are in the team are al­so ex­cit­ed, and the train­ing ses­sions have been go­ing well, and we are fit and ready to go.’

“We know this game is mas­sive for all of us, not just me, and per­son­al­ly I haven’t played in­ter­na­tion­al qual­i­fi­ca­tion foot­ball for a while, and I’m look­ing for­ward to it, but at the same time I’m hum­bled to go out there to work for my team and get the re­sults.”

With re­gards to the team’s readi­ness, Moli­no added, “It’s a bunch of hun­gry guys that we have that are ex­cit­ed to go out and play for T&T, and with the back­ing and sup­port of the coun­try, we get a dif­fer­ent en­er­gy, and we just want to re­pay them with a re­sult.”

De­spite Grena­da’s win over the Ba­hamas 6-0 on Wednes­day night to stay in con­tention in the group, Moli­no said the game plan for the match against St Kitts & Nevis will re­main the same.

“We are just fo­cus­ing on what our coach has in plan for us, and we go back to the draw­ing to­day (yes­ter­day) to work to­wards prepa­ra­tion for the game and just fo­cus on get­ting the three points, and we will take care of the rest on the next day.”

Moli­no was al­so hope­ful of a large turnout of sup­port­ers, say­ing, “We are look­ing for­ward to see­ing you guys out there, that 12th man for T&T, and we will try our best to make you all proud and bring the en­er­gy and bring the vibes in the sta­di­um to­mor­row.”

Mean­while, St Kitts & Nevis coach Austin Hug­gins was first to ad­mit that Grena­da’s 6-0 win over the Ba­hamas on Wednes­day night placed more pres­sure on his team as well as T&T go­ing in­to tonight’s fix­ture.

He added, “Grena­da’s win en­sures that both T&T and St Kitts & Nevis have lit­tle room for dis­ap­point­ment tonight, and as a team, we are hope­ful and still have the con­fi­dence in our­selves to be suc­cess­ful against T&T, so we just need to have be­lief and go out there and per­form and play to win.’

Hug­gins, whose team in­cludes sev­en over­seas-based play­ers, added, “Our guys have been train­ing very hard, and we have al­so stud­ied videos of the T&T team and ob­served their strengths and weak­ness­es, and we now have to go out and put all we have done in train­ing to­geth­er in the match and make the per­son­al sac­ri­fices to get the win.

Re­flect­ing on his team’s last out­ing against T&T, the 55-year-old Hug­gins said, “The last time we played in Mi­a­mi, it was dur­ing a heavy down­pour, and based on the weath­er and the team that we had, I think we did well.”

“We didn’t play our game in that we sat back and al­lowed T&T too much room and the ball to at­tack us, and this time around we have to go on the at­tack more and play for the win.

“This time around we have to put up a fight if we want to get the three points, and I be­lieve we have the abil­i­ty to play against these big­ger na­tions like T&T and even get the win,’ end­ed Hug­gins.

T&T So­ca War­riors Squad

Goal­keep­ers: Mar­vin Phillip (AC PoS), Jabari St Hillaire (De­fence Force), Den­zil Smith (AV Al­ta FC/USA),

De­fend­ers: Dar­nell Hospedales (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), Isa­iah Gar­cia (De­fence Force), An­dre Ray­mond (Dun­fermline Ath­let­ic/Scot­land), Alvin Jones (Re­al So­ciedad Mu­nic­i­pal/Hon­duras), Shel­don Bateau (KSK Bev­ern/Bel­gium),

Mid­field­ers: Stef­fen Yeates (York Unit­ed/Cana­da), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land), Nathaniel James (Port­land Hearts of Pine/USA), Kevin Moli­no (De­fence Force), Tyrese Spicer (Toron­to FC/Cana­da),Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids/USA), +

An­dre Ram­per­sad (Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers FC/Cana­da), Ajani For­tune (At­lanta Unit­ed/USA), Re­al Gill (Huntsville City/USA), Kai­him Thomas (De­fence Force), Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice FC), Noah Pow­der (Westch­ester SC/USA), Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace/Eng­land),

For­wards: Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Dante Sealy (CF Mon­tre­al/USA), Isa­iah Lea­cock (De­fence Force), Levi Gar­cia (FC Spar­tak Moscow/Rus­sia)

Coach: Dwight Yorke

St Kitts & Nevis ‘Sug­ar Boyz’ squad

Goal­keep­ers: Ju­lani Archibald, Kai Trot­man, Za­y­keese Smith

De­fend­ers: An­dre Bur­ley, Lois May­nard, De­nis Flem­ming, Al­jay New­ton, Or­dell Flem­ming, Jor­dan Bow­ery.

Mid­field­ers: Ro­maine Sawyers, Yohannes Mitchum, Tyquan Ter­rell, Mervin Lewis, Nequan Browne, Omari Ster­ling, Dio­n­is Stephen

For­wards: Ti­quan­ny Williams, G’vaune Amory, Tyreece Simp­son, Ki­ma­ree Rogers, Har­ri­son Panayiotou.

Coach: Austin Hug­gins

Cur­rent Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B:

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

Cos­ta Ri­ca*2*2*0*0*7*0*6

T&T*2*1*1*0*9*3*4

Grena­da*3*1*1*1*8*5*4

St Kitts/Nevis*2*1*0*1*1*4*3

Ba­hamas*3*0*0*3*1*14*0