T&T So­ca War­riors coach An­gus Eve has stat­ed that his team's group op­po­nents in the Con­ca­caf World Cup Sec­ond round of qual­i­fiers to­wards the FI­FA World Cup 2026 joint­ly host­ed by the al­ready qual­i­fied trio of USA, Cana­da and Mex­i­co, will pose a dif­fi­cult chal­lenge but one his team will put their best foot for­ward too.

The 51-year-old Eve, T&T's most capped play­er with 117 na­tion­al se­nior team ap­pear­ances, was speak­ing af­ter his team was drawn in Group B along­side five-time World Cup qual­i­fiers Cos­ta Ri­ca and Caribbean Foot­ball Union trio, St Kitts & Nevis, Grena­da, and The Ba­hamas when the draw took place at the Home of FI­FA in Zurich, Switzer­land, yes­ter­day. It was con­duct­ed by Chief Tour­na­ment Of­fi­cer – USA, FI­FA World Cup 2026TM, Manolo Zu­biria, and host­ed by sports re­porter, Alex­is Nunes along with FI­FA Leg­ends Paulo Wan­chope Wat­son (Cos­ta Ri­ca) and Ri­car­do Gard­ner (Ja­maica), who will serve as draw as­sis­tants.

In the First Round, which will take place in March, the four low­est-ranked Con­ca­caf mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions (based on the FI­FA/Co­ca-Co­la World Rank­ing as of De­cem­ber 21, 2023) will see Turks & Caicos Is­lands face An­guil­la while the British Vir­gin Is­lands play US Vir­gin Is­lands in home-and-away match­es from which the win­ners of each two-legged play­off will progress to round two.

The First Round win­ners see the win­ners of Play­off One join­ing the Sec­ond Round Group E, where Ja­maica, Guatemala, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, and Do­mini­ca await, while the First Round Play­off Two win­ner will en­ter the Sec­ond Round Group F with El Sal­vador, Suri­name, Puer­to Ri­co, and St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

The oth­er Sec­ond Round qual­i­fiers are Group A (Hon­duras, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Cu­ba, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands), Group C (Haiti, Cu­ra­cao, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos, Aru­ba), and Group D (Pana­ma, Nicaragua, Guyana, Montser­rat, Be­lize).

The Sec­ond Round of Con­ca­caf qual­i­fiers be­gins in June and con­cludes in June 2025, in­volv­ing six groups of five teams with each of the 30 mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions play­ing four match­es each, at the end of which the group win­ners and run­ners-up (12 teams in to­tal) will progress to the fi­nal round.

For the Con­ca­caf Fi­nal qual­i­fiers, which take place in Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber, and No­vem­ber 2025 among the 12 mem­ber as­so­ci­a­tions (six match dates), a sep­a­rate draw will be con­duct­ed for the Fi­nal Round fol­low­ing the con­clu­sion of the Sec­ond Round.

The 12 teams will be di­vid­ed in­to three groups of four teams with each team play­ing every oth­er team in their group at home and away, for a to­tal of six match­es (three at home and three away), at the end of which, the three group win­ners will qual­i­fy di­rect­ly for the FI­FA World Cup 2026, join­ing hosts Cana­da, Mex­i­co, and the USA.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the best two run­ners-up will rep­re­sent Con­ca­caf in the FI­FA Play-off Tour­na­ment, giv­ing the Con­ca­caf re­gion a pos­si­ble to­tal of eight teams at the FI­FA World Cup for the first time.

Fol­low­ing on from CON­MEBOL, the AFC and CAF, Con­ca­caf will be the fourth con­fed­er­a­tion to launch its qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign for the FI­FA World Cup 2026.

Com­ment­ing on the draw, Eve who is in the midst of prepar­ing the So­ca War­riors for a train­ing camp next month ahead of their clash with Cana­da in a 2024 Co­pa Améri­ca qual­i­fy­ing play­offs on March 23 at the Toy­ota Sta­di­um, Frisco in Texas, USA was quick to ad­mit that any group which com­pris­es Cos­ta Ri­ca will be a tough one.

He added, "Cos­ta Ri­ca is a peren­ni­al pow­er­house in Con­ca­caf and has con­sis­tent­ly qual­i­fied for the FI­FA World Cup and has play­ers who are as­so­ci­at­ed with top teams all over the world.

"Grena­da is now un­der the guid­ance of an Eng­lish coach and their foot­ball is on the up along with their as­so­ci­a­tion hav­ing the lux­u­ry of call­ing on play­ers born in Eng­land to Grena­di­an parent­age or have some fam­i­ly lin­eage, where­as Ba­hamas and St Kitts & Nevis have proven to be bo­gey teams for us in re­cent past even boot­ing us out of pre­vi­ous World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tions tour­na­ments.

"So for us, it will be right to say that none of the teams should be con­sid­ered easy teams and we will have to play each team on their mer­it, es­pe­cial­ly when the teams have the lux­u­ry of be­ing boost­ed by for­eign-born play­ers, as com­pared to us, as we have to op­er­ate un­der dif­fer­ent im­mi­gra­tion law."

Look­ing ahead to lo­cal­ly-based mi­ni-train­ing camp

With re­gards to the up­com­ing mi­ni train­ing camp next month in prepa­ra­tion for the play­off with Cana­da with the win­ner ad­vanc­ing to Co­pa Amer­i­ca Group A se­ries along­side World Cup cham­pi­ons and 15-time South Amer­i­can win­ner Ar­genti­na, two-time cham­pi­on Pe­ru and Chile, al­so a two-time win­ner, Eve said his team had a strat­e­gy meet­ing where they planned their way for­ward.

"We have been speak­ing with every­body about their in­di­vid­ual roles and our meet­ing this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) was for every­one to bring in their da­ta.

"We have a mi­ni-camp for the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers from Feb­ru­ary 5-8," said Eve, who added see­ing the play­ers in sea­son and ac­tive with their clubs has been re­fresh­ing to his tech­ni­cal team.

He not­ed, "Every camp we would have gone in­to pre­vi­ous­ly, the lo­cal­ly-based play­ers weren't play­ing and we had to do a lot of work to bring them up to match fit­ness, and now they are play­ing and the league is go­ing well and I think it's very com­pet­i­tive, so we can see that the play­ers are play­ing much sharp­er, than in the first sea­son.

"So it's good for us, mem­bers of the coach­ing staff, and we al­so have some new boys who will get the op­por­tu­ni­ty to come in the camp and work with us in that en­vi­ron­ment be­cause we have seen a lot of nice young play­ers com­ing through the league."

Con­cern­ing the over­seas-based play­ers, specif­i­cal­ly those in North Amer­i­ca, Eve point­ed out they are al­ready in pre-sea­son with their clubs and will have some pre-sea­son match­es un­der their belt even though it's very dif­fer­ent than what it used to be, with teams more in­volved in a lot more match­es, than back in the days when it was more about the phys­i­cal as­pect.

"Then we have the guys in Eu­rope who are in sea­son and go­ing in­to this round of match­es. I think we are in a bet­ter place than we were in the past," end­ed Eve.

In re­lat­ed news, as­sis­tant coach Reynold Car­ring­ton al­so re­joins Eve's coach­ing staff af­ter a health scare when the team com­pet­ed away to Cu­ra­cao last No­vem­ber in the Na­tions League qual­i­fiers.

Con­ca­caf 2026 FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fiers

First Round:

Play­off 1: British Vir­gins Is­lands vs US Vir­gin Is­lands

Play­off 2: Turks and Caicos Is­lands vs An­guil­la

Conac­caf

Sec­ond Round

Group A: Hon­duras, An­tigua & Bar­bu­da, Cu­ba, Bermu­da, Cay­man Is­lands

Group B: Cos­ta Ri­ca, T&T, St Kitts & Nevis, Grena­da, Ba­hamas

Group C: Haiti, Cu­ra­cao, St Lu­cia, Bar­ba­dos, Aru­ba

Group D: Pana­ma, Nicaragua, Guyana, Mon­ser­rat, Be­lize

Group E: Ja­maica, Guatemala, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Play­off 1 win­ner (British Vir­gins Is­lands vs US Vir­gin Is­lands)

Group F: El Sal­vador, Suri­name, Puer­to Ri­co, St Vin­cent and The Grenadines, Play­off 2 win­ner (Turks & Caicos Is­lands vs An­guil­la)