Dar­ryl Warn­er, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Dig­i­cel Pro League cham­pi­on, bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic has con­firmed that nip­py Japan­ese mid­field­er Yu Hoshide will be part of the squad for the up­com­ing 2010 sea­son. The 32-year-old Hoshide joined the East­ern Li­ons last Ju­ly on a six-month deal af­ter leav­ing USL Pre­mier De­vel­op­ment League club North­ern Vir­ginia Roy­als. His quick think­ing and tech­ni­cal abil­i­ty in mid­field proved vi­tal in help­ing Joe Pub­lic cap­ture five ti­tles that in­clud­ed the Big Six, Toy­ota Clas­sic, Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl and the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy last sea­son.

Hoshide, who pre­vi­ous­ly played in the Japan­ese Third Di­vi­sion with YKK AP for five years (2003-2007), and USL Sec­ond Di­vi­sion club Har­ris­burg Is­landers in 2008, is said to be re­turn­ing Joe Pub­lic for the 2010 sea­son af­ter en­joy­ing the Christ­mas va­ca­tion in his na­tive home­land. Warn­er said, "He (Hoshide) will be back with us for the new sea­son on a one-year deal. He is ex­pect­ed back in Feb­ru­ary." Warn­er al­so re­vealed that the club is cur­rent­ly screen­ing a num­ber of play­ers ahead of its loaded 2010 sea­son which be­gins in March with the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­ons Cup.

A Suri­namese goal­keep­er, as well as tri­al­ists from Japan, are among the play­ers to be over­looked by coach Derek King and his staff, ac­cord­ing to Warn­er. The two-time Pro League cham­pi­on be­gan its pre-sea­son yes­ter­day with open tri­als for lo­cal play­ers. So far, Joe Pub­lic has signed up Guyanese de­fend­er, Charles Pol­lard from Cale­do­nia AIA of Mor­vant/Laven­tille, as well as for­mer Cli­co San Juan Jabloteh and Unit­ed Petrotrin right back, Nigel Daniel, Mar­cus Am­brose, An­dre Tou­s­saint and Mar­cus Joseph to con­tracts. Na­tion­al goal­keep­er, Mar­vin Phillip is ex­pect­ed to com­plete a one-year loan deal from W Con­nec­tion ear­ly this week. Vet­er­an Colom­bian keep­er Ale­jan­dro Fig­ureoa and de­fend­ers Keyeno Thomas and Seon Pow­ers have all joined Ma Pau.