Nigel Si­mon

Or­lan­do City mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no was the ma­jor omis­sion when So­ca War­riors coach Stephen Hart an­nounced a 23-man T&T se­nior foot­ball squad for this coun­try's open­ing two match­es in the six-team Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round qual­i­fiers to the 2018 Fi­fa World Cup in Rus­sia.

T&T, which has qual­i­fied once to a se­nior Fi­fa World Cup, the 2006 Fi­nals in Ger­many hosts Cos­ta Ri­ca on Fri­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, and then trav­els to play Hon­duras on No­vem­ber 15.

The na­tion­al team will al­so meet USA, Pana­ma and Mex­i­co in their home-and-away round-robin se­ries at the end of which the top three teams will qual­i­fy au­to­mat­i­cal­ly to Rus­sia while the fourth placed teams will con­test a con­ti­nen­tal play­off for an­oth­er spot.

Last month, Moli­no was dropped by Hart for this coun­try's must-win Caribbean Foot­ball Union Cup semi­fi­nal qual­i­fi­er against Mar­tinique which served as a Con­ca­caf Gold Cup qual­i­fi­er af­ter it was re­vealed he had left the team's live-in camp fol­low­ing the 4-0 win over Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, in which he scored a hat-trick a few days ear­li­er.

That in­fringe­ment fol­lowed a sim­i­lar in­ci­dent a few days be­fore the Con­ca­caf Semi­fi­nal Round World Cup qual­i­fi­er at home to Guatemala in Sep­tem­ber, in which an un­der-par T&T man­aged a 2-2 draw to reach the six-team Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round qual­i­fiers to Rus­sia World Cup 2018.

Fol­low­ing the first in­ci­dent, Moli­no was re­port­ed­ly slapped with a fine and the is­sue was dealt with in­ter­nal­ly by the tech­ni­cal staff, af­ter which Moli­no promised to fo­cus on the job of get­ting the So­ca War­riors to Rus­sia.

How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the sec­ond in­fringe­ment, which now leaves T&T need­ing to qual­i­fy for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup via a CFU Cup qual­i­fy­ing se­ries, So­ca War­riors cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones called on Moli­no to apol­o­gise and re­turn to the team.

Jones called on Moli­no to ac­cept blame for his ac­tions and Moli­no who ini­tial­ly re­spond­ed to the crit­ics by stat­ing he was tak­ing the year off from na­tion­al du­ties to fo­cus on his club ca­reer seem­ing­ly bowed to pres­sure, had a change of heart and through his in­sta­gram page stat­ed he was sor­ry for mak­ing bad de­ci­sions and said he was 100 per cent com­mit­ted to rep­re­sent­ing the red, black & white if he was lucky enough to be se­lect­ed again.

How­ev­er, in ex­plain­ing his de­ci­sion to omit one of his team's most tal­ent­ed play­er Hart said he made the de­ci­sion to sus­pend Moli­no for the team's next two match­es as a form of pun­ish­ment for his re­cent ac­tions while on na­tion­al team du­ties.

Hart said, "I called him and had a chat with him and com­mend­ed him on mak­ing the de­ci­sion to apol­o­gize, but told him that he will out of the team for the next two match­es."

The T&T coach added, "I was told there was an In­sta­gram apol­o­gy, but I al­so un­der­stand there was a so­cial me­dia post where he vowed to take a year off,"

"Moli­no sent an apol­o­gy let­ter to man­age­ment, not to me, and I called him and com­mend­ed him on it, he will be able to fight for con­tention af­ter­wards."

When con­tact­ed Moli­no said: "The coach made his de­ci­sion and his de­ci­sion is fi­nal. I will al­ways sup­port the team and will al­ways want to be part of the team when ever I get se­lect­ed. I will be there to sup­port the team 100-per­cent and will be cheer­ing them on."

The oth­er no­table ex­clu­sions from the So­ca War­riors squad were de­fend­er Mekeil Williams of Col­orado Rapids, while Louisville City FC goal­keep­er Greg Ran­jits­ingh (in­jury), Mur­ciela­gos FC's Shah­don Win­ches­ter and W Con­nec­tion Hugh­tun Hec­tor, all of whom were in the team for the Sep­tem­ber Semi­fi­nal Round qual­i­fi­er against Guatemala.

Hart al­so an­nounced a few sur­prise names among the squad in W Con­nec­tion de­fend­er Je­lani Pe­ters, San Juan Jabloteh strik­er Willis Plaza and Cen­tral FC strik­er Mar­cus Joseph, while goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip of Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed re­turns af­ter miss­ing the CFU Cup qual­i­fiers.

Ac­cord­ing to Hart France-based mid­field­er John Bo­stock of Rac­ing Lens should re­ceive his clear­ance from Fi­fa ear­ly next week and has been se­lect­ed in the team.

Bo­stock was in linen to make his T&T de­but dur­ing the Semi­fi­nal Round qual­i­fiers, but was de­layed due to pa­per work on his switch from Eng­land to the T&T na­tion­al team, af­ter rep­re­sent­ing the Eu­ro­pean na­tion at youth lev­el.

Hart said, "We have seen all the doc­u­men­ta­tion and all that is left now is for Fi­fa to call or write us to con­firm."

The rest of the T&T team in­cludes goal­keep­ers Jan-Michael Williams and Adri­an Fon­cette; de­fend­ers Radan­fah Abu Bakr, Shel­don Bateau, Yohance Mar­shall, Car­lyle Mitchell, Aubrey David, Daneil Cyrus; mid­field­ers An­dre Bou­caud, Khaleem Ky­land, Ne­veal Hack­shaw, Cordell Cato, Jo­mal Williams, Levi Gar­cia, Jo­evin Jones, Ke­van George; for­wards Trevin Cae­sar, and cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones.

The T&T team is ex­pect­ed to be­gin prepa­ra­tions on Mon­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, while the Cos­ta Ri­cans will ar­rive on the eve of the match.

Tick­ets are on sale at all Lot­to Lo­ca­tions at TT$300 (cov­ered sec­tion) and TT$160 (un­cov­ered sec­tion). Prices in­crease to­mor­row–from 5 No­vem­ber–un­til match day to TT$350 (cov­ered) and TT$200 (un­cov­ered).

T&T men's squad

?Goal­keep­ers: Mar­vin Phillip (Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed), Jan-Michael Williams (Cen­tral FC), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC). De­fend­ers: Radan­fah Abu Bakr, Shel­don Bateau, Yohance Mar­shall, Car­lyle Mitchell, Aubrey David, Daneil Cyrus (W Con­nec­tion), Je­lani Pe­ters (W Con­nec­tion).

Mid­field­ers: An­dre Bou­caud, Khaleem Hy­land, Ne­veal Hack­shaw, Cordell Cato, Jo­mal Williams, Levi Gar­cia, Jo­evin Jones, John Bo­stock, Ke­van George, Mar­cus Joseph (Cen­tral FC). For­wards: Ken­wyne Jones (Cen­tral FC), Trevin Cae­sar, Willis Plaza (San Juan Jabloteh).