Match­es against Sau­di Ara­bia and Qatar have been lined up as the first re­al tests for new na­tion­al foot­ball coach Dwight Yorke and his staff ahead of the pre­lim­i­nary round of the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup and al­so the FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fiers next year.

Pres­i­dent of the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) Kieron Ed­wards is in­tent on de­liv­er­ing on his promise of an out-of-win­dow in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match for Yorke as ef­forts to se­cure one for the last win­dow (No­vem­ber 11-19) did not ma­te­ri­alise.

Yorke on his first as­sign­ment as So­ca War­riors coach con­duct­ed a live-in camp dur­ing the No­vem­ber 11-19 win­dow for lo­cal play­ers main­ly and sev­er­al in­ter­na­tion­al play­ers who were able to at­tend. How­ev­er, with no in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match lined up, he em­braced the op­por­tu­ni­ty to en­gage in a “get-to-know-you” ses­sion be­tween play­ers and staff mem­bers. The team took on T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League cam­paign­er De­fence Force in a prac­tice match and won 1-0, last Mon­day.

Af­ter a week of con­stant ne­go­ti­a­tions, Ed­wards is close to con­firm­ing the match­es which he said will be played abroad.

“We’re look­ing at Sau­di Ara­bia and Qatar for those games in De­cem­ber. We’re in the fi­nal stages with Sau­di Ara­bia, so hope­ful­ly they could con­firm and we’re now start­ing dis­cus­sions with Qatar to play those two games down on that side. If Sau­di Ara­bia con­firms in De­cem­ber then both games will be in De­cem­ber,” Ed­wards ex­plained.

The match­es are ex­pect­ed to be part of a larg­er ini­tia­tive to en­sure the en­tire coun­try and the wider di­as­po­ra are on board for the T&T team when it con­tests the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers in two match­es against Cu­ba in March next year, and lat­er in the team’s third World Cup qual­i­fi­er against St Kitts & Nevis at home in June.

“So the team had its first camp, we had the camp in the last win­dow and we’re plan­ning a few out-of-win­dow games. The first game home would be that match win­dow for the Gold Cup pre­lims, so we’re look­ing at dif­fer­ent ways to push.

“We’re talk­ing right now with our sup­pli­er Capeli, our spon­sors for jer­seys and uni­forms to make a col­lec­tor’s item jer­sey be­cause a lot of peo­ple have been com­plain­ing about the un­avail­abil­i­ty of these kits for some years and it’s some­thing that we’re go­ing to make a right, to make sure that every fan who needs a T&T jer­sey, whether in T&T or the di­as­po­ra will have one.

“So we want to do a col­lec­tor’s item jer­sey and we’re hav­ing dis­cus­sions with them right now to do it. We’re coin­ing the phrase ‘One TTFA, One Na­tion, One Team, Jour­ney 2026’ so we’re go­ing to have a col­lec­tor’s item jer­sey for that and we’re go­ing to start pre-or­der­ing in Jan­u­ary to have them ready for the next match day.

“We want to fill that sta­di­um against Cu­ba in March, Dwight Yorke’s first game home and build that mo­men­tum for the World Cup qual­i­fiers in June against St Kitts & Nevis. We want to fill the sta­di­um, and we want every­one in a T&T jer­sey. This would al­so help the process and what we do to en­sure that there are camps and what not.”

The lo­cal foot­ball boss not­ed fur­ther: “Per­sons are long­ing to be part of it, they’re en­er­gised. I would have seen per­sons en­er­gised by the un­veil­ing of coach Yorke, from the ses­sions he would have done, and you can see the light in the eyes of the play­ers with him as coach.”

In re­cent home and away match­es against Cu­ba un­der then-coach Derek King, the So­ca War­riors won 3-1 and drew 2-2 in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League.

In the World Cup qual­i­fiers, T&T are sec­ond in Group B be­hind Cos­ta Ri­ca on four points from a 2-2 tie with Grena­da and a 7-1 thrash­ing of the Ba­hamas. Yorke told the me­dia, he was not study­ing the St Kitts & Nevis match right now as his fo­cus was to get his play­ers on the same page ahead of the qual­i­fiers.