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Thursday, January 23, 2025

We need to be ready for the task—skipper David

by

Nigel Simon
140 days ago
20240905
Getting Ready! T&T players inclusive of Kevon ‘Showtime’ Woodley, Ryan Telfer, Kyle Auvray, and Duane Muckette among others going through their paces in preparation of facing Honduras tomorrow night in the CONCACAF Nations League on Friday in Honduras.  The T&T team will next face French Guiana on September 10 in their match before meeting Cuba in a pair of matches.

Getting Ready! T&T players inclusive of Kevon ‘Showtime’ Woodley, Ryan Telfer, Kyle Auvray, and Duane Muckette among others going through their paces in preparation of facing Honduras tomorrow night in the CONCACAF Nations League on Friday in Honduras. The T&T team will next face French Guiana on September 10 in their match before meeting Cuba in a pair of matches.

Courtesy TTFA

So­ca War­riors cap­tain Aubrey David says his team will need to be con­cen­trat­ed and ready for the task when they face Hon­duras in their open­ing 2024/2025 CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League A Group B match at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional Chela­to Ucles, Tegu­ci­gal­pa, which is sit­u­at­ed 975 me­ters above sea lev­el on Fri­day from 10 pm.

The 33-year-old Guyana-born David, who has fea­tured 82 times at se­nior lev­el for the So­ca War­riors with one goal to his cred­it, was speak­ing ahead of T&T’s sec­ond prac­tice ses­sion yes­ter­day in Tegu­ci­gal­pa fol­low­ing their ar­rival in the city on Tues­day evening.

David, who joined Guatemalan club CSD Mu­nic­i­pal in the off­sea­son from CS Cartagines, first ad­mit­ted it was good to be back with his in­ter­na­tion­al teams ahead of their open­ing two group match­es.

David said, “It feels good to be back with the boys, as it’s al­ways a plea­sure to rep­re­sent the na­tion­al team. Most of the guys are here with us, and I be­lieve we are on­ly miss­ing one play­er, so it’s just for us to set­tle down as soon as pos­si­ble be­cause we know the game is on the 6th (Fri­day).

“So, it’s just for us to prac­tice and get every­thing in the cou­ple of days to get the game plan down and hope we can get off on the right foot on the 6th.

The So­ca War­riors have tast­ed de­feat in the last four out­ings against Hon­duras, in­clu­sive of a 4-0 loss in their last CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League meet­ing on No­vem­ber 17, 2019, which fol­lowed a 2-0 home loss on Oc­to­ber 10, 2018 and two FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fiers, 3-1 away on No­vem­ber 15, 2016 and 2-1 at home on Sep­tem­ber 1, 2017.

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 a 1-0 re­sult in Hon­duras, their lone win against the host on their home soil on Oc­to­ber 7, 2001, and 3-1 at the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup on Feb­ru­ary 1, 1998 in the USA.

Ad­mit­ting the size of the task ahead to be a huge one and every­one need­ing to be on the same page, David said, “Every­body came on the main mis­sion and the same goal, and every­body knows what we are in for and every­body is up for the task, and it’s just to fo­cus and to get ac­cus­tom to each in these cou­ple of days that we have to go out on the 6th (Fri­day) and give every­thing that we have against Hon­duras.”

“We know it’s go­ing to be a dif­fi­cult game, but we just need to stick to­geth­er and be unit­ed, and we could get the job done.”

Hav­ing fea­tured for a few clubs in Cen­tral Amer­i­ca dur­ing his pro­fes­sion­al ca­reer, in­clud­ing De­porti­vo Sapris­sa of Cos­ta Ri­ca, David said that ex­pe­ri­ence could be of help.

He said, ‘Yeah, it can help me a lot be­cause I’m ex­pe­ri­enced play­ing in these coun­tries, but we know they (Hon­duras) are at home and will be com­ing with every­thing, and we know that the crowd is go­ing to be on their side, so I think we just need to stay con­cen­trat­ed and fo­cus be­cause as long as we con­tin­ue to do our game plan and keep them out, it’s go­ing to be more pres­sure for them, so I just think we need to be con­cen­trat­ed and ready for the task.”

Fri­day’s match for the So­ca War­riors will be the first un­der in­ter­im coach Derek King, 44, and he will look to im­prove his team’s over­all record against the Hon­durans, which al­so in­cludes 11 de­feats and  six draws.

Fol­low­ing Fri­day’s match, the So­ca War­riors re­turn home to host French Guiana at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go, on Sep­tem­ber 10 at 7 p.m.

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 to­day, 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.

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). 


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