Gary Grif­fith III, son of Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith, is one of four un­capped play­ers se­lect­ed in a 28-man squad by na­tion­al se­nior men’s foot­ball team coach Ter­ry Fen­wick, who left here on Fri­day morn­ing for T&T’s re­main­ing two Con­ca­caf Group F Qatar World Cup 2022 World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

In ad­di­tion to Griffth III, his Col­eraine FC of Ire­land club-mate Jessie Williams, for­mer San Juan Jabloteh play­er Nick­el Orr of Cyprus’ PAEEK, and for­mer na­tion­al youth play­er, Cana­da-born Luke Singh are the oth­er play­ers in the 28-man squad who are yet to make their in­ter­na­tion­al se­nior team de­but.

T&T faces the Ba­hamas on June 5 in Nas­sau, and three days lat­er they meet St Kitts/Nevis in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in two must-win match­es as on­ly the group win­ners will qual­i­fy to the next phase of qual­i­fiers of next year’s World Cup.

As it stands, St Kitts/Nevis who meets Guyana on June 4, in their penul­ti­mate match leads the ta­ble with a max­i­mum of six points from two match­es, two ahead of T&T, while Guyana sits third three points fol­lowed by Puer­to Ri­co (one) and the point­less Ba­hamas.

The oth­er mem­bers of the team se­lect­ed by for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Fen­wick, a win­ning coach at T&T Pro League duo, San Juan Jabloteh and Cen­tral FC in­cludes goal­keep­ers Nick­las Fren­derup (Ran­heim), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC), and Den­zil Smith (W Con­nec­tion);

De­fend­ers Radaan­fah Aby Bakr (free agent), Robert Primus (FC Ben­galu­ru), Ke­ston Julien (FC Sher­iff), Shan­non Gomez (Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic) who earns a first-call-up in close to five years, Shel­don Bateau (KV Meche­len), Aubrey David (De­porti­va Sapris­sa), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), Ne­veal Hack­shaw (In­dy Eleven FC), and Noah Pow­der (Re­al Salt Lake); mid­field­ers Du­ane Muck­ette (free agent), Michael Poon-Angeron (free agent), An­dre For­tune II (Mem­phis FC 901), Daniel Phillips (Wat­ford FC), Hashim Ar­cia (De­fence Force), Ju­dah Gar­cia (free agent), Khaleem Hy­land (Al Batin FC), and Jo­evin Jones (In­ter Mi­a­mi FC) and for­wards Levi Gar­cia (AEK Athens), Daniel Carr (FC Ben­galu­ru), Ryan Telfer (Atleti­co Ot­tawa), and Jo­mal Williams (Metepan FC).

Among the play­ers who were in­volved in the team for the open­ing two match­es against Guyana a 3-0 win and the 1-1 draw with Puer­to Ri­co and not called up this time are goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip (free agent), de­fend­er Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery), mid­field­ers: An­dre Bou­caud (Maid­stone Unit­ed), and Sean Bon­val (Cen­tral FC) and at­tack­ers Brent Sam (De­fence Force FC), Willis Plaza (Mo­hammedan SC), Jabari Mitchell (Po­lice FC), and Mar­cus Joseph (free agent) while Alvin Jones who has re­cov­ered from in­jury was not se­lect­ed as well.

Fol­low­ing his team’s first two match­es in the five-team qual­i­fy­ing group, Fen­wick promised that he will be in­tro­duc­ing some new faces to the team for the fi­nal two match­es.

And over the past few weeks, close to 20 new play­ers were ru­moured to be among those be­ing tar­get­ed in­clu­sive of US Ma­jor League-based duo, Nick de Leon of Toron­to FC, the son of for­mer T&T leg­end, Leroy De Leon as well as FC Dal­las’ Dante Stew­art, the son of ex-St Mary’s Col­lege and na­tion­al strik­er, Scott Sealy.

The oth­ers play­ers on Fen­wick’s wish­list for T&T play for clubs which cam­paign in the Dutch Ere­di­vise, Eng­land Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion, France Ligue 1, Eng­land Pre­mier League and Scot­land's Pre­mier League were Lille’s Kalie Au­vray, Chris­t­ian Phelps Nor­ton (Stoke City), Tris­tan Albe­deen Goodridge (As­ton Vil­la), Tino Quam­i­na (Ar­se­nal), Michael de Shields (DC Unit­ed), Shaq Moore (CD Tener­ife)), De­se­vio Payne (FC Em­men), Ro­ry Mc Ken­zie (Kil­marnock), Dan­ny Im­ray (Crys­tal Palace), and Deron Payne (LA Galaxy).

Al­so, the quin­tet of Ro­ry Mc Ken­zie (Kil­marnock FC) John Bo­stock (Don­cast­er Rovers), Ryan In­niss (Charl­ton Ath­let­ic), Kur­tis Cum­ber­batch (Dover Ath­let­ic), and Tris­tan Abra­hams (Ley­ton Ori­ent).

How­ev­er, no up­date has been pro­vid­ed on their sta­tus or com­mit­ment if any to join the T&T team.

The na­tion­al team was ex­pect­ed to ar­rive in Mi­a­mi on Fri­day af­ter­noon and will overnight be­fore con­nect­ing to Nas­sau on Sat­ur­day.

“Look­ing around the world of the play­ers that are avail­able, that have reached out to me that want to play and rep­re­sent their na­tion­al team, it’s been fan­tas­tic the re­sponse that we’ve had,” said an en­cour­aged Fen­wick. “I’m pleased to bring them to­geth­er.”

He con­tin­ued, “I’m de­light­ed with the play­ers that I’ve got on the ground in T&T as well. They’ve been bril­liant. I love them to death. They have shown lots of pro­fes­sion­al­ism.”

Look­ing ahead to the first match Fen­wick said, “A lot of the train­ing ses­sions we have had in T&T have been in prepa­ra­tion for when we meet the rest of the guys in the Ba­hamas so we can fast track to get­ting every­body on the same page.

“We know what the game plan is, ho we are at­tack­ing the game, how we are de­fend­ing the game and that prepa­ra­tion is told to the play­ers al­ready in T&T to feed out to the guys com­ing in”, end­ed Fen­wick.

It must be not­ed that three play­ers were deemed un­avail­able for se­lec­tion af­ter each in­di­vid­ual re­turned two con­sec­u­tive Covid-19 pos­i­tive re­sults this week. The TTFA wish­es them a speedy re­cov­ery and will con­tin­ue to mon­i­tor their re­cov­ery over the next few weeks.

All oth­er mem­bers in the con­tin­gent de­part­ing on Fri­day re­turned neg­a­tive re­sults. All mem­bers of the con­tin­gent will un­der­go PCR tests on ar­rival in Nas­sau and the rec­om­mend­ed pro­to­cols will be con­tin­ued to be fol­lowed through the du­ra­tion of the trip.

Play­ers and mem­bers of staff will be mon­i­tored by the med­ical staff un­der strict and rel­e­vant mea­sures.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, play­ers Luke Singh, Jo­mal Williams and Nick­las Fren­derup will be avail­able for se­lec­tion on­ly for St Kitts and Nevis en­counter and will join the camp in San­to Domin­go.

T&T team for World Cup qual­i­fiers:

Goal­keep­ers: Nick­las Fren­derup (Ran­heim), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC), Den­zil Smith (W Con­nec­tion)

De­fend­ers: Radaan­fah Aby Bakr (free agent), Robert Primus (FC Ben­galu­ru), Ke­ston Julien (FC Sher­iff), Shan­non Gomez (Sacra­men­to Re­pub­lic), Shel­don Bateau (KV Meche­len), Aubrey David (De­porti­va Sapris­sa), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), Jesse Williams (Col­eraine FC), Ne­veal Hack­shaw (In­dy Eleven FC), Noah Pow­der (Re­al Salt Lake), Luke Singh (Toron­to FC)

Mid­field­ers: Du­ane Muck­ette (free agent), Michael Poon-Angeron (free agent), An­dre For­tune II (Mem­phis FC 901), Daniel Phillips (Wat­ford FC), Hashim Ar­cia (De­fence Force), Ju­dah Gar­cia (free agent), Khaleem Hy­land (Al Batin FC), Jo­evin Jones (In­ter Mi­a­mi FC),

For­wards: Levi Gar­cia (AEK Athens), Daniel Carr (FC Ben­galu­ru), Gary Grif­fith (Col­eraine FC FC), Ryan Telfer (Atleti­co Ot­tawa), Nick­el Orr (Paeek FC), Jo­mal Williams (Metepan FC).

Head Coach: Ter­ence Fen­wick :