T&T's all-time goal-scor­er Kevon "Show­time" Wood­ley will car­ry the hopes of an ear­ly T&T vic­to­ry from 6 pm Tues­day evening when the na­tion­al unit faces the USA in its open­ing match of the Con­ca­caf Men's Beach Soc­cer World Cup Qual­i­fiers at the Mal­colm Park Beach Soc­cer Fa­cil­i­ty in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas.

The T&T team had its first work­out at the game fa­cil­i­ty yes­ter­day, and they took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to pre­pare ahead of Tues­day's en­counter. The last time the teams met was in 2023 when the men in red, white and black lost 5-0.

Yes­ter­day, na­tion­al coach Cha­do Ap­poo said his charges are ex­cit­ed and ea­ger to be­gin but they are aware it would be a chal­lenge against the Con­ca­caf re­gion's top team.

"They're all ex­cit­ed and buzzing to get go­ing. We will have our first of­fi­cial train­ing ses­sion at the fa­cil­i­ty lat­er to­day (yes­ter­day) so we can't wait for that to fine-tune a cou­ple of things ahead of the game against USA, the open­er. Of course, it would be a chal­leng­ing game as the USA is one of the top-ranked teams in the re­gion, but those are the kind of games that we like to play," Ap­poo said.

T&T has al­ways emerged from the group stages but has strug­gled to get past the quar­ter­fi­nals. How­ev­er, with Con­ca­caf re­struc­tur­ing the for­mat of the tour­na­ment this year to fea­ture on­ly the top eight teams in the re­gion, Ap­poo's men can break that jinx by be­ing one of the top two teams to progress from the group which would put them straight in­to the semi­fi­nal round.

Ap­poo ex­plained the new for­mat has not made it less dif­fi­cult for his charges, though it is an eas­i­er route.

He be­lieves that the blend of play­ers in the team will in­crease the coun­try's chances of a top-two fin­ish.

"We have Kevon Wood­ley re­turn­ing to the squad, he missed the last cam­paign. He is our all-time lead­ing goalscor­er and of course, we know what qual­i­ty he brings and what he can add. We have some oth­er guys in like Zane Cok­er and the skip­per Jesse Bai­ley. And then we have a cou­ple of guys who have been around for some years now, who al­so made it in­to this fi­nal squad so the likes of Ka­iron Joseph and Jayson 'Mouse' Joseph who are ac­tive in the Pro League back home," Ap­poo said.

"Then we have oth­er guys who cur­rent­ly play in the Pro League back home, who over the years have shown their abil­i­ty to adapt to the sand ver­sion of the game, such as Jor­dan Ri­ley, Kevon Williams and so on."

T&T will next face Pana­ma Wednes­day at the same venue from 6 pm and will close off their cam­paign against the host na­tion on Thurs­day at 8 pm.

T&T TEAM

GOAL­KEEP­ERS: Zane Cok­er, Jabari Gray

FIXED/DE­FENCE: Jesse Bai­ley, Ka­iron Joseph, An­der­son Pe­ters

WING/MID: Shane Hospedales, Kevon Williams, Jor­dan Ri­ley, Jayson Joseph

PIV­OT/FOR­WARD: Kevon Wood­ley, Ka­reem Per­ry, Aki­no­la Gre­go­ry