Trinidad and To­ba­go se­nior men’s foot­ball team coach Derek King could be fac­ing a se­lec­tion chal­lenge for his team’s next match in the Group A League. A of the 2026/2027 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League against the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Sun­day. Kick off is 9 pm.

This is af­ter it was con­firmed that USA-based in­flu­en­tial winger Tyrese Spicer of Or­lan­do City suf­fered a hair­line frac­ture in his right foot late in T&T’s 2-3 loss to re­cent World Cup par­tic­i­pants’ Haiti at Sabi­na Park in Kingston, Ja­maica, on Thurs­day night, and will be out for the team’s re­main­ing three match­es over the next 10 days as well as the rest of his club’s US Ma­jor League Soc­cer play­offs cam­paign over the next two months.

In ad­di­tion to Spicer, who had to re­main on the field for the fi­nal five min­utes af­ter T&T had al­ready made their five sub­sti­tu­tions, King could al­so be with­out the quin­tet of goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith, de­fend­ers Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, Justin Gar­cia, and Ja­heim Joseph, and winger Rio Car­dines, join­ing the trio of Roald Mitchell, Nathaniel James, and Dante Sealy, who had with­drawn from the team pri­or to the clash with the Haitians, all through in­jury as well.

Smith picked up an in­jury ear­ly in the sec­ond half and was re­placed by goal­keep­er Jabari Brice, and Trim­ming­ham was re­placed at the half-time in­ter­val by Joseph af­ter a mus­cle is­sue, while Gar­cia and Car­dines, the lat­ter of whom came off 65th for Deron Paye, are car­ry­ing knocks.

Speak­ing af­ter his team fell to de­feat af­ter lead­ing 2-1 in the late stages of the clash with the Haitians, King said it was re­al­ly tough to com­pre­hend it.

He added, “I think when we went ahead in the sec­ond half, I think the lines start­ed to drop a lit­tle deep. But I think, you know, what hap­pened to­day in the game was that we had some in­juries, some key in­juries, which kind of ham­per our game plan.

“Some of our top play­ers had to come off the game be­cause of some in­juries, so I think that kind of ham­pered our game plan, and the lines we start­ed to drop too deep be­cause I think fa­tigue stepped in.”

With re­gard to the in­juries, King said, “Trim­ming­ham got a knock in the first half ear­ly, and he re­al­ly tried to make it to the sec­ond half, but he had to come off un­for­tu­nate­ly, and then Rio (Car­dines) got a knock as well, and then our skip­per land­ed less than 48 hours be­fore the game, so it was a lit­tle tough, and we al­so had some is­sues with the ABD weath­er with our play­ers com­ing in­to the coun­try.”

Look­ing ahead to the rest of the cam­paign, King said, “It’s im­por­tant for us to stay pos­i­tive. We have three more games, and we are go­ing back home to play the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and it’s im­por­tant that we stay pos­i­tive and get a good re­sult.”

“I don’t think we are get­ting good re­sults, and I don’t think we are tak­ing any team for grant­ed. The game is won on its day, and we have to put in our best per­for­mance.

On Thurs­day night, the Haitians went 1-0 ahead in the 23rd through vet­er­an Fafa Pi­cault, 35, a for­mer USA in­ter­na­tion­al, be­fore USA-based Wayne Fred­er­ick II drew T&T lev­el with a sweep­ing right-foot­ed vol­ley to beat goal­keep­er Alexan­dre Pierre in the 32nd minute.

T&T cap­tain Levi Gar­cia put T&T 2-1 ahead in the 59th minute when he ran on­to a Fred­er­ick’s pass to lob goal­keep­er Pierre.

With the min­utes tick­ing away, King tried to de­fend his 2-1 lead and re­placed Gar­cia and Fred­er­ick II with Dan­taye Gilbert and debu­tant An­drew De Gannes in the 76th and 84th min­utes, re­spec­tive­ly.

But the move back­fired on T&T as the Haitians con­tin­ued to press, and in the 90th minute, they drew lev­el at 2-2 when Wil­son Isidor’s down­ward head­er from a right-sided cross was slot­ted home from close range by Gar­ven-Michee Me­tusala.

Six min­utes in­to time added-on, Isidor fi­nal­ly got his goal on the night when he was on spot at the far post to bun­dle the ball over the line af­ter a right-sided cross de­flect­ed off debu­tant de­fend­er An­drew De Gannes to se­cure the first win in League A and sparked off wild cel­e­bra­tions amongst his team­mates, hand­ing T&T a heart­break­ing last-gasp de­feat, which ex­tend­ed their win­less run to ten match­es and sev­en with King at the helm.

Mean­while, a dis­ap­point­ed Levi Gar­cia, the team’s cap­tain, speak­ing af­ter the de­feat said, “I would say a tough loss tonight (Thurs­day). I’m re­al­ly hap­py with the ef­fort the boys put out af­ter com­ing here on short no­tice, and long flights.

He said, “Re­al­ly dis­ap­point­ed not to come out vic­to­ri­ous tonight, but we have an­oth­er game on Sun­day and we have to for­get this and move on.”

Asked what they will be do­ing dif­fer­ent in the next game than they did against the Haitians, Gar­cia replied, “That will be up to the coach, tac­ti­cal­ly, but what we can do is to tug it out a bit more, have more faith and trust the porcess a bit more.”

T&T’s last win came against Bermu­da, 3-0 last Oc­to­ber in a Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fi­er.

Fol­low­ing Sun­day’s match, T&T will then trav­el to Cu­ra­cao, on Oc­to­ber 1, at the Sta­dion Ergilio Ha­to in Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao, for a 6 pm clash with their fi­nal match at home three days lat­er, al­so ver­sus Cu­ra­cao 4, in Port-of-Spain, from 6 pm.

Al­so in League A Group A, FC Por­to’s Pablo Rosario snatched a dra­mat­ic late win­ner for the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in their 3-2 tri­umph over Nicaragua, while Cu­ra­cao came from 3-0 down at half-time to de­feat host Cos­ta Ri­ca 4-3.

Al­so on Sun­day, Nicaragua will play away to Cu­ra­cao at Sta­dion Ergilio Ha­to, Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao, from 8 pm, while Haiti faces Cos­ta Ri­ca.

Thurs­day’s re­sults

Haiti 3 (Fafa Pi­cault 23rd, Gar­ven-Michee Me­tusala 90+1, Wil­son Isidor 90+7) vs T&T 2 (Wayne Fred­er­ick II 32nd, Levi Gar­cia 59th)

Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic 3 (Heinz Morschel 5th, Mar­i­ano Di­az 15th, Pablo Rosario 90+7) vs Nicaragua 2 (Juan Luis Perez 40th, By­ron Bonil­la 84th)

Cu­ra­cao 4 (Ken­ji Gorre 62nd, 78th Tahith Chong 66th, Jor­di Pauli­na 82nd) vs Cos­ta Ri­ca 3 (Car­los Mo­ra 23rd, 45+1, Or­lan­do Sin­clair 3rd)

T&T team

22. Den­zil Smith (GK) (1. Jabari Brice (GK) 66th), 5. Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (4. Ja­heim Joseph 46th), 7. Ryan Telfer, 8. Daniel Phillips, 11. Levi Gar­cia (capt) (12. Dan­taye Gilbert 76th), 14. Wayne Fred­er­ick II (6. An­drew De Gannes 84th), 16. Tyrese Spicer, 17. Justin Gar­cia, 18. An­dre Ram­per­sad, 19. Rio Car­dines (2. Deron Payne 66th), 23. Noah Pow­der.

Subs not used: 21. Ja­heim Wick­ham (GK), 9. Daniel David, 10. Luke Phillip, 13. Re­on Moore, 20. Re­al Gill.

Coach: Derek King

Haiti team: 1. Alexan­dre Pierre (GK), 2. Car­lesn Ar­cus (capt), 4. Gar­ven-Michee Me­tusala, 5. Hannes Del Croix, 6. Carl Sainte (10. Jean Bel­le­garde 58th), 7. Fab­rice Pi­cault (19. Yassin En­zo For­tune 58th), 8. Mar­tin Ex­pe­ri­ence, 11. Louicius Don Deed­son (15. Ruben Prov­i­dence 69th), 17. Dan­ley Jean-Jacques (20. Frantzdy Pier­rot 84th), 18. Wil­son Isidorm 21. Dany Jean (9. Ken­ny Em­manuel Que­tant 58th).

Subs not used: 12. 12. Jon­ah Med­nard (GK), 23. Jo­sue Du­verg­er (GK), 3. Fran­cois Dulysse, 13. Markhus La Croix, 14. Do­minique Celi­dor Si­mon, 22. Jean-Kevin Du­verne.

Coach: David Ba­dia

Lat­est League A Group A stand­ings

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

Cu­ra­cao*1*1*0*0*4*3*3

Dom Rep*1*1*0*0*3*2*3

Haiti*1*1*0*0*3*2*3

Cos­ta Ri­ca*1*0*0*1*3*4*0

T&T*1*0*0*1*2*3*0

Nicaragua*1*0*0*1*2*3*0