T&T’s se­nior men’s foot­ball team has been drawn in Group B of ‘League A’ along­side re­gion­al ri­val Ja­maica of the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League for the fourth edi­tion of the com­pe­ti­tion.

The draw took place on Mon­day night be­fore a packed au­di­ence and fea­tured vet­er­an T&T goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams, for­mer Hon­duran strik­er Car­los Pavon, and Con­ca­caf Gen­er­al Sec­re­tary Philippe Mog­gio, all wit­ness­ing the start of a three-league for­mat –Leagues A, B and C to be played dur­ing the FI­FA Match Win­dows of Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber, and No­vem­ber 2024.

Both the So­ca War­riors and the Reg­gae Boyz en­joy a sim­i­lar record in the 63 meet­ings be­tween them to date, both en­joy­ing 26 wins and as many loss­es, with 11 drawn ac­counts. How­ev­er, the Reg­gae Boyz may boast of hav­ing the last laugh with a com­pre­hen­sive 4-1 drub­bing of the War­riors dur­ing the group stage of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup last year in the Unit­ed States.

The teams con­tin­ued their ri­val­ry in Feb­ru­ary of this year with two non-com­pet­i­tive friend­ly match­es in T&T, which the Ja­maicans won 1-0, fol­low­ing a win by the same mar­gin for the Heimir Hall­grims­son-coached team, be­fore An­gus Eve’s men held them goal­less at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

Apart from that ri­val­ry, the group will al­so fea­ture Hon­duras, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, and French Guiana.

Eve in an im­me­di­ate re­sponse said: “We’re in the ‘A’ League now and the teams are all very dif­fi­cult teams to play. We must show that we’ve earned the right to be here in the last A cam­paign, so we’re just go­ing to put our best foot for­ward as usu­al.

“Last sea­son, we per­formed cred­itably well, win­ning three out of the four games and we won some dif­fi­cult games away from home al­so, so we are op­ti­mistic. We have a new team and our pri­ma­ry goal now is to main­tain our sta­tus in the ‘A’ and qual­i­fy for things like the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup and stuff like that, make sure that we con­tin­ue to be con­sis­tent and give our­selves the best chance for the World Cup cam­paign,” Eve said.

Mean­while, Group A will com­prise Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, Suri­name and Guyana.

The teams were all dis­trib­uted in­to the Leagues ac­cord­ing to the re­sults of the pre­ced­ing edi­tion (2023/24).

Fol­low­ing the Group Stage play in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 2024, the first and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers of each group (four teams in to­tal) will ad­vance to the Quar­ter­fi­nals, where they will join the four top-ranked League A teams (Mex­i­co, Unit­ed States, Pana­ma, and Cana­da).

The Quar­ter­fi­nals will be played in a home-and-away for­mat, with the ag­gre­gate score win­ner in each matchup ad­vanc­ing to the 2025 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League Fi­nals.

League B fea­tures 16 teams di­vid­ed in­to four groups of four teams and dur­ing the FI­FA Match Win­dows of Sep­tem­ber, Oc­to­ber, and No­vem­ber, each team will play every team in its group twice, for a to­tal of six match­es per team.

Group A of the League will see El Sal­vador, Montser­rat, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Bonaire, with Cu­ra­cao, Saint Lu­cia, Grena­da, and Saint Mar­tin play­ing out of Group B.

For each FI­FA Match Win­dow, match­es in each group will be played at a cen­tralised venue in­stead of the pre­vi­ous home-and-away for­mat. The for­mat change is ex­pect­ed to al­le­vi­ate some of the trav­el chal­lenges that Mem­ber As­so­ci­a­tions face due to our re­gion’s unique ge­og­ra­phy and al­low them to fo­cus on de­liv­er­ing the best pos­si­ble foot­ball.

The third-best ranked teams in each group will host the Sep­tem­ber match­es, the sec­ond-best ranked teams will host the Oc­to­ber match­es, and the best-ranked teams will host the de­ci­sive No­vem­ber match­es. If a team is un­able to host match­es, Con­ca­caf will re­serve the right to se­lect a venue.

Mean­while, League C in­cludes nine teams di­vid­ed in­to three groups of three teams. Dur­ing the FI­FA Match Win­dows of Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, each team will play every team in its group twice, for a to­tal of four match­es per team. Its for­mat will be sim­i­lar to that of League B.

DRAW

LEAGUE A: 16 TEAMS (GROUP STAGE AND QUAR­TER­FI­NALS)

Group A: Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, Suri­name, and Guyana

Group B: Ja­maica, Hon­duras, Trinidad and To­ba­go, Cu­ba, Nicaragua, and French Guiana

The first and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers of each group (four teams in to­tal) will ad­vance to the Quar­ter­fi­nals,

QF1: Fourth-ranked seed­ed team (Cana­da) vs Best first place (1A/1B)

QF2: Third-ranked seed­ed team (Pana­ma) vs Next first place (1A/1B)

QF3: Sec­ond-ranked seed­ed team (Unit­ed States) vs Best sec­ond place (2A/2B)

QF4: Best-ranked seed­ed team (Mex­i­co) vs Next sec­ond place (2A/2B)

LEAGUE B: 16 TEAMS (GROUP STAGE)

Group A: El Sal­vador, Montser­rat, Saint Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Bonaire

Group B: Cu­ra­cao, Saint Lu­cia, Grena­da, and Saint Mar­tin

Group C: Haiti, Puer­to Ri­co, Aru­ba, and Sint Maarten

Group D: Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, Bermu­da, An­tigua and Bar­bu­da, and Do­mini­ca

LEAGUE C: 9 TEAMS (GROUP STAGE)

Group A: Bar­ba­dos, Ba­hamas, and US Vir­gin Is­lands

Group B: Be­lize, Turks and Caicos Is­lands, and An­guil­la

Group C: Saint Kitts and Nevis, Cay­man Is­lands, and British Vir­gin Is­lands