T&T ‘So­ca War­riors’ coach An­gus Eve has ad­mit­ted he has been giv­en a lot to think about by the per­for­mances of some of his lo­cal­ly-based play­ers dur­ing their two-match sweep of Guyana in their in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Mon­day and Wednes­day nights.

On Mon­day, T&T got its first win in four match­es in 2024 via goals from debu­tants, 22-year-old Ezekiel Ke­sar, in the 28th, and Kevon ‘Show­time’ Wood­ley, ten min­utes lat­er in a 2-1 win over the Gold­en Jaguars who got a 47th-minute item from Kelsey Ben­jamin.

And on Wednes­day at the same venue, mid­field­er Michel Poon-Angeron, 23, play­ing his 13th match broke the dead­lock in the 53rd minute af­ter the Guyana de­fend­er failed to clear a Jabari Mitchell at­tempt be­fore Ke­sar robbed Guyana de­fend­er Terique Mo­hammed of the ball and found an un­marked Wood­ley who fired home off a de­fend­er in the 77th.

Guyana’s best chance fell to sub­sti­tute Sime­on Moore a minute from full time, but af­ter latch­ing on to a weak back pass from sub­sti­tute Matthew Woo Ling, he wrong-foot­ed de­fend­er Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, on­ly to be de­nied a re­flex save from goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith, low to his left.

The two wins over Guyana were the third in six match­es for T&T over their ri­vals and al­so ex­tend­ed T&T’s un­beat­en run against their neigh­bours to six match­es, since a 2-1 loss in a Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers in 2012, while se­cur­ing a first win for 2024 af­ter a 1-0 loss and 0-0 draw against Ja­maica in two friend­lies in March was fol­lowed by the 2-0 Co­pa Amer­i­ca play­off de­feat ver­sus Cana­da.

Over­all, T&T has now won five of 11 meet­ings with Guyana, with five draws and one de­feat.

For both coach­es, T&T’s Eve and Guyana’s T&T-born Ja­maal Shab­baz the match­es served as key op­por­tu­ni­ties for their most­ly home-based play­ers ahead of the start of their re­spec­tive Sec­ond Round of Con­ca­caf 2026 FI­FA World Cup Qual­i­fiers ear­ly next month.

The ‘So­ca War­riors’ will open their Group B five-team round-robin Sec­ond Round of World Cup qual­i­fiers at home to neigh­bour Grena­da on June 5 at Mu­cu­rapo from 7.30 pm fol­lowed by an away clash with the Ba­hamas on June 8 at St Kitts & Nevis Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Cen­ter in Bas­seterre.

The ‘So­ca War­riors’ will then com­plete their four-match sched­ule in 2025 with a home en­counter against St Kitts & Nevis on June 6, fol­lowed by an away out­ing to group favourite Cos­ta Ri­ca while Guyana will kick off its Group D se­ries away to Pana­ma in Pana­ma City on June 6 be­fore en­ter­tain­ing Be­lize in Bridgetown, Bar­ba­dos on June 11 while they al­so face Nicaragua and Montser­rat.

Speak­ing af­ter his team’s 2-0 win over neigh­bours Guyana via goals from Michel Poon-Angeron, and vet­er­an strik­er Kevon ‘Show­time” Wood­ley, his sec­ond in as many match­es against the same op­po­nents, the 52-year-old Eve said, “As I said be­fore the games were about ex­pos­ing young play­ers and main­tain­ing the play­ers that are in and around the play­er’s pool, and I thought that was the most part im­por­tant part to give play­ers the op­por­tu­ni­ty and grasp it with both hands. Tonight’s game es­pe­cial­ly I thought the first half was ex­cel­lent again with­out scor­ing the chances that we got, and tech­ni­cal­ly I think it could have been a big­ger score­line, but we will take the win.”

With the World Cup qual­i­fiers kick­ing off next month Eve said he most def­i­nite­ly was able to get out of the two match­es what he want­ed as he looks to fi­nalise his team.

He said, We had just about five days with the guys two days be­fore the first match and a day in be­tween, and an­oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ty to play.

So for us try­ing to im­pact what we are try­ing to im­part and to see them try to ex­e­cute it on the field I was very hap­py for the most part ex­cept for the sec­ond half of the first game, and I thought that we were very con­sis­tent in our play to­day (Wednes­day), but again we give away some slop­py chances, and we have to elim­i­nate those prob­lems when we play big teams.”

Eve said he would not on­ly praise Ke­sar and Wood­ley, but added, “I would throw Matthew Woo Ling, and Daniel David in as well be­cause I thought they were ex­cel­lent and they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty that they got tonight (Wednes­day) and in the pre­vi­ous game. And I thought when we brought them on the sec­ond half, they changed the game and we got a bit more tem­po and more pen­e­tra­tion, so I’m very hap­py for these guys as they got the op­por­tu­ni­ty and I thought they grasped it with both hands.”

He added, “I al­so thought de­fend­er Trim­ming­ham (Josi­ah) was good at the back, he was sol­id, and you know Ray­mond (An­dre) was very con­sis­tent and I thought Isa­iah Gar­cia who came on and played right back be­cause Alvin Jones) had an in­jury, so we sued Liam Burns in the first match and Isa­iah (Gar­cia) in this match, and I thought the four goal­keep­ers did well, with what they had to do in the match­es and time, so there were a lot of pos­i­tive per­for­mances.

Look­ing ahead to the June 5 qual­i­fi­er at home against Grena­da at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, and three days lat­er away to the Ba­hamas at St Kitts/Nevis Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Tech­ni­cal Cen­tre in Bas­seterre, Eve says that he has been giv­ing some food for thought by sev­er­al play­ers over the course of the two match­es ver­sus Guyana.

Asked who the play­ers that im­pressed enough to be in con­sid­er­a­tion for team se­lec­tion, Eve, a for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain replied, ‘A num­ber of play­ers, but I’m not go­ing to say it here right now, but yes a num­ber of them give us some­thing to think about.

In terms of the team prepa­ra­tions for the match­es against Grena­da and Ba­hamas, he said it will be dif­fi­cult with the lim­it­ed time al­lot­ted to do so.

He ex­plained, “The guys will be with their clubs un­til the end of the month in the lo­cal league (T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League) wrap­ping up soon with three of four match­es to go in­clu­sive of the knock­out match­es and the for­eign-based play­ers are still in sea­son as well and we will get them when the win­dow is open at the end of the month. So we have to tell the Guyana Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion thanks for com­ing on board to help us with the prepa­ra­tion as well.”

TEAMS

T&T: 21.Aaron Enill (GK) (22.Den­zil Smith [GK] 46th); 2.Isa­iah Gar­cia, 5.Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, 17.Justin Gar­cia (capt), 6.An­dre Ray­mond; 18.Kevon God­dard (15.Sime­on Bai­ley 86th), 8.Michel Poon-Angeron (16.Matthew Woo Ling 74th); 14.Jabari Mitchell (9.Ezekiel Ke­sar 74th), 10.Du­ane Muck­ette (13.Daniel David 74th), 4.Sher­vohnez Hamil­ton (7.Isa­iah Lee 46th [20.Lin­dell Sween 80th]); 19.Brent Sam (23.Kevon Wood­ley 46th).

Subs not used: 3.Ross Rus­sell Jr, 11.Adriel George, 12.Robert Primus.

Coach: An­gus Eve

Guyana: 1.Jamine Cum­ber­batch (GK) (22.Amari Thomp­son [GK] 80th); 14.Curtez Kell­man, 3.Kevin Layne (21.Cedric Os­borne 82nd), 19.Quin­cy Adams; 16.Nicholai An­drews, 6.Dar­ron Niles (8.Chris Macey 61st), 17.Daniel Wil­son (capt), 2.Leo-Ori­on Lovell (15.Ryan Hack­ett 61), 4.Terique Mo­hammed (20.Amos Ram­say 80); 11.Kelsey Ben­jamin (7.Mar­cus Tu­dor 61), 9.An­tho­ny Smith (23.Sime­on Moore).

Subs not used: 18.Si­mon Emanuel (GK), 10.Stephen Mc­Don­ald, 12.Solomon Austin, 13.Be­van Bak­er.

Coach: Ja­maal Shabazz