Na­tion­al foot­ball coach Dwight Yorke says his charges will have to be at their very best if they are to over­come Cu­raçao in Tuesday’s (Oc­to­ber 14) cru­cial Group B en­counter of the World Cup Qual­i­fi­er at the Ergilio Ha­to Sta­di­um in Cu­raçao from 7 pm.

Since their goal­less tie with T&T in Sep­tem­ber, the Cu­raçao men have won their last two match­es against Bermu­da and Ja­maica, which has placed them at the top of the four-team group on sev­en points, with the Reg­gae Boyz, with wins over Bermu­da and T&T, in the sec­ond po­si­tion on six points, while the men in red, white, and black are in the third po­si­tion.

Yorke, at the pre-game press con­fer­ence, said the Cu­ra­cao team is on a high; how­ev­er, his team is al­so on a high, fol­low­ing their 3-0 tri­umph over Bermu­da last Fri­day. The game is a do-or-die clash which the T&T men need to win if they are to move on suc­cess­ful­ly in the group. Out­side of that, they will have to be one of the two best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers to en­ter an in­ter-con­fed­er­a­tion play-off in March to qual­i­fy.

“Well, ob­vi­ous­ly, we’re in a much bet­ter place. Com­ing off a huge vic­to­ry against Bermu­da, now we come to Cu­ra­cao, know­ing that Cu­ra­cao is at the top of the ta­ble, and quite right­ly so. But we know from the very be­gin­ning that this group was nev­er go­ing to be as straight­for­ward as many peo­ple thought it would be. What we have done is we’ve been able to give our­selves a chance to get back in­to the mix of things.”

“And of course, we’re go­ing to be fac­ing a very tough test in Cu­raçao. But we’re not un­der any delu­sion. I’ve al­ways said to the play­ers that we could on­ly con­trol what’s in front of us. They’re on a high. They’re com­ing off a very good vic­to­ry against Ja­maica. Every­one here on the is­land is up­beat and op­ti­mistic. And so are we. We’re at a very crit­i­cal stage of the com­pe­ti­tion. We know a vic­to­ry, cer­tain­ly on both sides, will put us one step clos­er to qual­i­fy­ing. So that is what’s at stake. So, we are ful­ly pre­pared, and we are aware of every­thing that is around us. And as I say to my play­ers, it’s all about us. We can on­ly con­trol what’s in front of us. And we need to be at our best to over­come Cu­raçao to­mor­row, as sim­ple as that.”

Af­ter em­brac­ing the team that won against Bermu­da as his own, Yorke al­so ex­pressed de­light yes­ter­day in a team he be­lieves can come away with the win to­day. Since tak­ing over from An­gus Eve as head coach in No­vem­ber last year, the for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed strik­er has said his team is ea­ger and ready to go.

He said, “That’s the beau­ty when things are get­ting re­al­ly heat­ed up. It’s one of the great things to have an amaz­ing squad. Every­one is ea­ger to be in­volved, and quite right­ly so. That’s some­thing of a dream for a man­ag­er to have, and cer­tain­ly I’m very lucky to have all 26 play­ers avail­able and re­al­ly ex­cit­ed about the prospect and the chal­lenge.”

He added, “I think that, as play­ers, you have to em­brace that, and so, again, I go back to flip­ping that neg­a­tive en­vi­ron­ment. When I said en­vi­ron­ment, the re­sults didn’t go the way we want­ed ear­li­er on. But we’ve been able to turn that neg­a­tive in­to a pos­i­tive very quick­ly. And we know ex­act­ly what is at stake. A vic­to­ry here to­mor­row will be huge for us. And cer­tain­ly, mak­ing the right step. We man­aged to put one step in front of us; we need to put the oth­er one. And the play­ers are ful­ly aware of what it will take to make sure that we over­come Cu­raçao.”

Mean­while, de­fend­er An­dre Ray­mond says his team can tri­umph against Cu­ra­cao tonight, but it would re­quire the same lev­el of to­geth­er­ness that they dis­played against Bermu­da. “It’s a won­der­ful feel­ing to get our first three points in the cam­paign, so it’s just to build on it now. The key for us was to­geth­er­ness, that fight, that dri­ve, you know, our goal scor­ing. We have to put away our chances to win the game and a clean sheet away from home. I think the to­geth­er­ness, the dri­ve that we showed on the field out there, and the ca­ma­raderie have all been dif­fer­ent for me since I’ve been here. So, I think that built us strong as a team. So, it shows out on the pitch.”

SQUAD

Wayne Fred­er­ick II, Dante Sealy, Justin Obik­wu, Justin Gar­cia, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Rio Car­dines, Re­al Gill, Jabari St Hillaire, Den­zil Smith, Noah Pow­der, Kaile Au­vray, Isa­iah Lee, Mo­lik Khan, Jabari Brice, Deron Payne, Ko­bi Hen­ry, Jer­ribn Jack­ie, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Stef­fen Yeates, Daniel Phillips, Nathaniel James, Kevin Moli­no, Levi Gar­cia, Ryan Telfer, Tyrese Spicer