For­mer T&T So­ca War­riors coach, Cana­da-based Stephen Hart is set for a re­turn at the helm of the team, as a re­place­ment for the out­go­ing An­gus Eve.

The 51-year-old Eve, who re­placed Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick in 2021 af­ter this coun­try’s failed 2022 FI­FA World Cup qual­i­fi­ca­tion cam­paign, was ini­tial­ly hand­ed the reigns of the team on an in­ter­im ba­sis by the FI­FA-ap­point­ed Nor­mal­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee of the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion (T&TFA), be­fore the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup 2021 pre­lim­i­nary round play-offs.

The 2021 play­offs start­ed with a match against Montser­rat which T&T won 6-1 and fol­lowed that up with an 8-7 penal­ty-kicks tri­umph af­ter a 1-1 draw with French Guiana to se­cure a spot in the group stage.

Dur­ing the Gold Cup, T&T drew goal­less with Mex­i­co, went un­der to El Sal­vador 0-2 and drew 1-1 with Guatemala to bow out at the round-robin stage.

Eve’s term as in­ter­im head coach be­gan at the end of Au­gust 2021 and based on the dis­play of the So­ca War­riors un­der his charge, com­pared to the poor show­ing un­der the pre­vi­ous coach, Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick, the NC de­cid­ed to ap­point the Care­nage-born for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain on Sep­tem­ber 7, 2021, ahead of the 2022 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League 2022 on a full-time ba­sis, un­til March 31, 2023, ini­tial­ly.

At the time, Eve, T&T’s most-capped play­er with 117 ap­pear­ances was al­so a com­pe­tent coach at top-flight TT foot­ball and at the youth lev­el with Na­pari­ma Col­lege and Club San­do.

Dur­ing his time in charge, Eve en­joyed a record of 12 wins, nine draws, and sev­en de­feats, the last of which was a 6-0 drub­bing at the hands of host and de­fend­ing Con­ca­caf Gold Cup cham­pi­ons USA at the Bank of Amer­i­ca Sta­di­um, Char­lotte, Car­oli­na on Sun­day night, that end­ed T&T’s chances of reach­ing the quar­ter­fi­nals for the fourth time, and the first since 2015 when Hart was at the helm.

Iron­i­cal­ly, Hart al­so led the team to the last eight in 2013 while T&T placed third with Bertille St Clair af­ter a 1-0 loss to even­tu­al cham­pi­ons Cana­da in the semi­fi­nals.

With the loss on Sun­day night, which fol­lowed a 4-1 de­feat against Ja­maica last Wednes­day, the So­ca War­riors end­ed third in Group A with three points, af­ter their 3-0 win against St Kitts/Nevis in their open­er, while USA and Ja­maica both ad­vanced to the knock­out stage.

Among Eve’s wins, was a 9-0 tri­umph over Bar­ba­dos and a 1-0 tri­umph away to Ja­maica ear­li­er this year in Ja­maica, while his team al­so played to a 0-0 draw with Ja­maica in March and with pow­er­house Mex­i­co to open their 2021 Gold Cup cam­paign.

How­ev­er, his im­pres­sive stint as coach was stained by the last two Gold Cup de­feats, along with a 5-0 loss away to Bo­livia, and sim­i­lar 2-1 de­feats against Tajik­istan, Nicaragua, and Thai­land.

Co­in­ci­den­tal­ly, the So­ca War­riors' en­try in­to the Gold Cup came af­ter an ini­tial 2-1 loss to Nicaragua in June last year, which was over­turned to a 3-0 win for Nicaragua's use of an in­el­i­gi­ble play­er.

Ac­cord­ing to a source close to the TTFA, de­spite the vast im­prove­ment of the team un­der Eve, the na­tion­al coach does not have the full back­ing of the T&TFA of­fi­cials, who are in favour of a re­turn of Hart, who was pre­vi­ous­ly head coach from 2013 to 2016 be­fore he was sacked by the then T&TFA Pres­i­dent, now de­ceased, David John-Williams.

The source added that Hart, who was re­placed by Bel­gian Tom Saint­fi­et, who last­ed just over a month in charge, was first con­tact­ed in Feb­ru­ary, but the for­mer St Bene­dict's Col­lege man told the T&TF­FA he pref­ered to wait un­til the po­si­tion was va­cant be­fore start­ing dis­cus­sions over a re­turn to the top job of the na­tion­al team.

Back then Hart was sacked on No­vem­ber 24, 2016, af­ter a 3-1 loss away to Hon­duras in the Hexag­o­nal Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round 2018 World Cup qual­i­fiers which fol­lowed a 2-0 loss at home to Cos­ta Ri­ca, and a loss in ex­tra-time to Mar­tinique 2–0 in the Caribbean Cup.

Among the mem­bers of Hart’s staff at the time were as­sis­tant coach­es Hut­son “Bar­ber” Charles, Derek King, and goal­keep­er coach Michael “Brow” Mau­rice, which, along with Hart, led the na­tion­al team to a record of 16 wins, 12 draws, and 15 de­feats in 43 match­es, reach­ing the Gold Cup quar­ter­fi­nals in 2013 and 2015.

As coach of the Cana­da na­tion­al team, on an in­ter­im and full-time ba­sis, Hart en­joyed a record of 20 wins, ten draws, and 15 de­feats in 45 match­es com­bined.

Off the field, Hart won a court bat­tle with the T&TFA for wrong­ful dis­missal by the John-William-led ad­min­is­tra­tion and was award­ed TT $5 mil­lion, af­ter the lat­ter failed to de­fend the mat­ter.

The de­ci­sion to fire Hart came af­ter a meet­ing be­tween John-Williams, tech­ni­cal com­mit­tee chair­man and for­mer T&T Pro League Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer and na­tion­al mid­field­er Dex­ter Skeene, de­ceased tech­ni­cal di­rec­tor Muham­mad Isa, East­ern Coun­ties Foot­ball Union rep­re­sen­ta­tive Sher­wyn Dy­er and vice-pres­i­dent Al­lan Warn­er.

Hart en­joyed a sab­bat­i­cal from coach­ing du­ties be­fore re­turn­ing to his adopt­ed home­land of Cana­da as coach of the HFX Wan­der­ers on June 28, 2018, for the Cana­di­an Pre­mier League sea­son, but at the end of the 2022 sea­son, Wan­der­ers and the San Fer­nan­do-born Hart part­ed ways.

Dur­ing his time at Wan­der­ers, Hart was in 2020, named the Cana­di­an Pre­mier League ‘Coach of the Year’ af­ter lead­ing Hal­i­fax to an ap­pear­ance in the league fi­nal dur­ing The Is­land Games.

Dur­ing that com­pe­ti­tion, Wan­der­ers turned heads by fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the league in both the first round and four-team group stage, falling nar­row­ly to Forge FC in a hard-fought fi­nal.

Hart al­so led the team through a sol­id 2021 sea­son that saw them fall just bare­ly short of the play­offs, in a year where star for­ward João Morel­li won the league’s Gold­en Boot and Play­er of the Year award.

In 2022, HFX fin­ished sev­enth in the CPL with 29 points, post­ing a record of eight wins, five draws, and 15 de­feats.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, the de­ci­sion to ap­point Hart is a pos­si­bil­i­ty, while Ken­wyne Jones, a for­mer na­tion­al men’s team cap­tain, and se­nior women’s coach is ex­pect­ed to be a mem­ber of his tech­ni­cal staff.

Guardian Me­dia al­so learned that Jones re­cent­ly turned down the Women's coach­ing job to join Hart.

Ac­cord­ing to the source, “An­gus (Eve) was a pos­si­ble tar­get for the job as coach for the na­tion­al women’s team, but he is now ex­pect­ed to re­turn to du­ties with T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League club, Tiger Tanks Club San­do”.

With no in­ter­na­tion­al FI­FA dates be­tween now and the start of the 2023/2024 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, once con­firmed in the job, Hart's first as­sign­ments will be League A ac­tion against Group A op­po­nents,  Pana­ma, Guatemala, El Sal­vador, Mar­tinique, and Cu­raçao while Group B com­pris­es Haiti, Ja­maica, Hon­duras, Cu­ba, Suri­name, and Grena­da.

For Group Stage play, the 12 low­est ranked League A na­tion­al teams were drawn in­to two groups of six teams each and will play in a “Swiss style” league sys­tem. In to­tal, each team will play four games (two at home and two away). The groups are as fol­lows:

Af­ter Group Stage play, in the FI­FA Match Win­dows of Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 2023, each group’s first and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers will ad­vance to the CNL Quar­ter­fi­nals, where they will join the four top-ranked League A na­tion­al teams.

The quar­ter­fi­nal round will be played in a home-and-away for­mat in the FI­FA Match Win­dow of No­vem­ber 2023, with the ag­gre­gate score win­ners in each Quar­ter­fi­nal matchup ad­vanc­ing to the 2024 CNL Fi­nals and qual­i­fy­ing for the 2024 Con­mebol Co­pa Amer­i­ca. 

The four seed­ed na­tions in the Quar­ter­fi­nals are (in al­pha­bet­i­cal or­der): Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Mex­i­co, and the USA. 

The pair­ing for the quar­ter­fi­nals will be de­ter­mined based on the Con­ca­caf Rank­ings of Oc­to­ber 2023 (af­ter the FI­FA Win­dow) and the 2023/24 CNL Group Stage re­sults.

Quar­ter­fi­nal 1: Fourth-ranked seed­ed team vs Best first place (1A/1B)

Quar­ter­fi­nal 2: Third-ranked seed­ed team vs Next first place (1A/1B)

Quar­ter­fi­nal 3: Sec­ond-ranked seed­ed team vs Best sec­ond place (2A/2B)

Quar­ter­fi­nal 4: Best-ranked seed­ed team vs Next sec­ond place (2A/2B)

The re­main­ing two Con­ca­caf na­tions that will par­tic­i­pate in the 2024 Con­mebol Co­pa Amer­i­ca will be de­ter­mined via a sin­gle-match di­rect elim­i­na­tion Play-In be­tween the four League A los­ing Quar­ter­fi­nal­ists. This Play-In will al­so take place in March 2024.