In­ter­im So­ca War­riors coach Derek King and his team were sched­uled to de­part Pi­ar­co last night for Tegu­ci­gal­pa, Hon­duras, where they will kick off their 2024/2025 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A Group B cam­paign against Hon­duras on Fri­day (Sep­tem­ber 6) at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional Chela­to Ucles, Tegu­ci­gal­pa, from 10 pm.

The T&T team will re­turn home to host French Guiana at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, on Sep­tem­ber 10 at 7 pm.

T&T will al­so face Cu­ba in a pair of match­es in Group B on Oc­to­ber 10 away from home and then four days lat­er at home to close our round-robin play in the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League.

Ja­maica and Nicaragua are al­so in Group B but will not face T&T in their four round-robin match­es, while Group A is made up of Cos­ta Ri­ca, Guatemala, Mar­tinique, Guade­loupe, Suri­name, and Guyana.

The CNL League A will get go­ing on Thurs­day (Sep­tem­ber 5), with Guyana host­ing Suri­name, Cos­ta Ri­ca at home to Guade­loupe, and Guatemala host­ing Mar­tinique, all in Group A, while Fri­day's two oth­er Group B match­es fea­ture Ja­maica at home to Cu­ba and French Guiana en­ter­tain­ing Nicaragua.

King, 44, a for­mer na­tion­al de­fend­er, was ap­point­ed to the post at the end of Ju­ly to re­place An­gus Eve, who was sacked fol­low­ing a meet­ing chaired by T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) pres­i­dent and tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee chair­man Kieron Ed­wards on Ju­ly 31. 

Eve's sack­ing came with more than a year left on his con­tract and came two match­es in­to this coun­try's 2026 FI­FA Con­ca­caf World Cup Sec­ond Round Group B qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign, with the So­ca War­riors sit­ting on four points from two match­es to trail Cos­ta Ri­ca, who has a max­i­mum of six points.

The So­ca War­riors drew their open­er at home with St Kitts & Nevis 2-2, fol­lowed by an em­phat­ic 7-1 blowout of the Ba­hamas, Eve’s last match in charge, and will 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 favourites Cos­ta Ri­ca four days lat­er.

For the first two match­es in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, King, who served as an as­sis­tant to Eve as well as un­der pre­vi­ous coach Stephen Hart, has kept faith with the play­ers who fea­tured in the first two World Cup qual­i­fiers in June, with on­ly 26-year-old Greece-based for­ward Levi Gar­cia of AEK Athens re­quest­ing time off and USA-based 21-year-old Ajani For­tune of At­lanta Unit­ed not be­ing avail­able. 

Against Hon­duras, T&T will be hop­ing for a run of four straight de­feats, with the last be­ing in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, 4-0 on No­vem­ber 17, 2019.

This fol­lowed a 2-0 home loss on Oc­to­ber 10, 2018, while T&T was al­so beat­en in their last two FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fiers 3-1 away on No­vem­ber 15, 2016 and 2-1 at home on Sep­tem­ber 1, 2017.

In fact, the So­ca War­riors last win of three came at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup on Ju­ly 15, 2013, via a 2-0 mar­gin thanks to goals from Ken­wyne Jones and Kevin Moli­no at Shell En­er­gy Sta­di­um in Hous­ton, Texas, with the oth­er wins com­ing via a1-0 score line in Hon­duras in an­oth­er World Cup qual­i­fi­er on Oc­to­ber 7, 2001, and 3-1 at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup on Feb­ru­ary 1, 1998.

Over­all, T&T and Hon­duras have met 20 times, with Hon­duras win­ning 11 match­es and the six oth­ers end­ing in drawn out­comes.

Af­ter Group Stage play in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber, the first and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers of each group will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals, where they will join the four top-ranked League A teams (Mex­i­co, USA, Pana­ma, and Cana­da). 

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

With re­gards to pro­mo­tion and rel­e­ga­tion at the con­clu­sion of the com­pe­ti­tion, the League A fifth and sixth-place fin­ish­ers in each group will be rel­e­gat­ed to League B, while League B group win­ners will be pro­mot­ed to League A, and fourth-place fin­ish­ers will be rel­e­gat­ed to League C.

In League C, the group win­ners and the best sec­ond-place fin­ish­er will be pro­mot­ed to League B.

As pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced, the 2024/25 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League will serve as the qual­i­fiers for next sum­mer’s 2025 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup, with the con­fed­er­a­tion set to an­nounce the ex­act qual­i­fy­ing cri­te­ria at a lat­er date.

T&T Squad

Goal­keep­ers: Christo­pher Biggette(De­fence Force), Den­zil Smith (AC Port-of-Spain), Aaron Enill (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica)

De­fend­ers: Aubrey David (CS De­porti­vo Mu­nic­i­pal/Guatemala), Tris­ton Hodge (Hart­ford Ath­let­ic/USA), Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery/USA), An­dre Ray­mond (St John­stone FC/Scot­land), Shan­non Gomez (San An­to­nion FC/USA), Alvin Jones (Po­lice FC), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force)

Mid­field­ers: Du­ane Muck­ette (AC Port-of-Spain), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Stef­fen Yeates (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da), Dan­taye Gilbert (Jong PSV/Hol­land), Noah Pow­der (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm/USA), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land),

For­wards: Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Ryan Telfer (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Nathaniel James (Mount Pleas­ant/Ja­maica), Re­al Gill (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm), Re­on Moore (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da), Kaile Au­vray (Cav­a­liers FC/Ja­maica), Kevon Wood­ley (Po­lice FC).

Tech­ni­cal staff: Derek King (in­ter­im coach), Walt Nor­ie­ga (as­sis­tant coach), Ross Rus­sell (goal­keep­er coach), Adar­ryl John (ath­let­ic train­er), Saron Joseph (strength and con­di­tion­ing coach), Joseph Rooplal (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Michael Williams (equip­ment man­ag­er), Dr Akash Dhanai (doc­tor), Shaun Fuentes (me­dia of­fi­cer), Richard Piper (man­ag­er)