T&T So­ca War­riors coach Dwight Yorke named the un­capped USA-based duo of Dante Sealy (CF Mon­tre­al) and Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids) among 16 over­seas-based play­ers in his 26-man squad for this coun­try’s Sec­ond Round Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B qual­i­fi­er against St Kitts & Nevis at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Fri­day, June 6, from 7.30 pm.

The 26 play­ers se­lect­ed by Yorke pri­or to Tues­day’s first train­ing ses­sion at the Mu­cu­rapo venue since re­turn­ing from the Afro-Caribbean Uni­ty Cup in Eng­land on Sun­day last al­so rep­re­sent his team se­lec­tion for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup, which kicks off next week in the USA, where T&T will face host USA, Sau­di Ara­bia and Haiti in the round-robin pool match­es.

The 22-year-old Sealy is the son of for­mer So­ca War­riors strik­er Scott Sealy, while Fred­er­ick II, 20, 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 Tyrese Spicer.

The oth­er over­seas-based play­ers named in the squad by Yorke in­cludes goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith (AV Al­ta FC/USA), de­fend­ers: Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), An­dre Ray­mond (Dun­fermline Ath­let­ic/Scot­land), Alvin Jones (Re­al So­ciedad Mu­nic­i­pal/Hon­duras), Shel­don Bateau (KSK Bev­ern/Bel­gium), and Dar­nell Hospedales (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed); mid­field­ers Stef­fen Yeates (York Unit­ed/Cana­da), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land), Nathaniel James (Port­land Hearts of Pine/USA), Tyrese Spicer (Toron­to FC/Cana­da), An­dre Ram­per­sad (Hal­i­fax Wan­der­ers FC/Cana­da), Ajani For­tune (At­lanta Unit­ed/USA), Re­al Gill (Huntsville City/USA), Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace/Eng­land), and Noah Pow­der (Westch­ester SC/USA) as well as for­wards Levi Gar­cia (FC Spar­tak Moscow/Rus­sia).

The rest of the team com­pris­es eight lo­cal play­ers: in goal­keep­ers Mar­vin Phillip (Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain) and Jabari St Hillaire (De­fence Force); mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice FC); strik­er Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers); and the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I cham­pi­ons De­fence Force’s quar­tet of Isa­iah Gar­cia, Kevin Moli­no, Isa­iah Lea­cock and Kai­him Thomas.

The So­ca War­riors will en­ter Fri­day’s match in the five-team pool sec­ond spot in Group B with four points from two match­es, two be­hind Cos­ta Ri­ca, af­ter a 2-2 draw at home to St Kitts & Nevis and a 7-1 win on the road against Ba­hamas.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the next stage of the CON­CA­CAF World Cup qual­i­fiers.

Look­ing ahead to Fri­day’s match against the ‘Sug­ar Boyz’, the 53-year-old Yorke was quick to point out his team would not be tak­ing the op­po­nents light­ly.

He said, “First to be­gin, there is no com­pla­cen­cy in this team, and we cer­tain­ly re­spect St Kitts/Nevis as a team, and we know what they are go­ing to bring to the ta­ble, and we cer­tain­ly will be study­ing them over the com­ing days, and we will cer­tain­ly be prepar­ing for a re­al­ly tough game.” So, rest as­sured, even though on pa­per it may look like a game that we should win, we know how the game is played, and the play­ers have to un­der­stand that there is work to be done and we are still work­ing to­wards that, and prepa­ra­tion starts to­wards the game for Fri­day.”

Com­ment­ing on the se­lec­tion of his 26 play­ers, an up­beat Yorke said, “We have man­aged to see 54 play­ers in to­tal, and now we bring that down to 26, and it gives me a good idea, and I think now you can see the new era of T&T foot­ball as I called it, and I’m sure the pub­lic will be sur­prised by a few names and faces that they are prob­a­bly not fa­mil­iar with, and we have done our due dili­gence in terms of re­cruit­ment and ob­serv­ing these play­ers over the 54 play­ers, and now we come down to these 26 play­ers.”

Look­ing at the big­ger pic­ture of World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion, Yorke made it clear it will take a nu­cle­us of play­ers to get T&T there, but when it comes down to these two match­es against St Kitts/Nevis and then away to Cos­ta Ri­ca on Tues­day, June 10, and then the Gold Cup, this is the bunch that right now is in the pole po­si­tion.”

With re­gards to the se­lec­tion of Sealy and Fred­er­ick Yorke, what the tech­ni­cal staff have done in their due dili­gence is they have gone through cer­tain chan­nels and looked at the cri­te­ria of where they are play­ing, which cer­tain­ly gives them a chance, and work­ing with them over the next cou­ple of days, we will be able to see these play­ers and see their strengths and how they could fit in­to the sys­tem.”

“But, cer­tain­ly as a coach, I’m very ex­cit­ed with the squad and al­so ex­cit­ed about the play­ers men­tioned and the rest of the squad that the coun­try hasn’t been able to see at first hand, and they will have a good op­por­tu­ni­ty to wit­ness that come Fri­day,” stat­ed Yorke.

St Kitts/Nevis coach Austin Hug­gins al­so held a train­ing ses­sion with most of his play­ers at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um Train­ing Field yes­ter­day and was look­ing for­ward to putting up a good bat­tle against the host on Fri­day.

At the 18th edi­tion of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup, the So­ca War­riors will open their Group D cam­paign against the USA on June 15 at Pay­Pal Park, San Jose, from 6 pm, fol­lowed by match­es against Haiti on June 19 at Shell En­er­gy Sta­di­um, Hous­ton, from 6.45 pm, be­fore clos­ing off their round-robin se­ries ver­sus Sau­di Ara­bia on June 22 at the Al­le­giant Sta­di­um, Par­adise, Neva­da, from 7pm.

The So­ca War­riors se­cured their spot in the Gold Cup af­ter beat­ing Cu­ba 6-1 on ag­gre­gate in their pre­lim­i­nary round qual­i­fi­er, 2-1 away on March 21 in San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba, and 4-0 on March 25 at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

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