Austin Hug­gins, coach of the St Kitts & Nevis na­tion­al men's foot­ball team says his team's game plan against T&T "So­ca War­riors" in their sec­ond round Con­ca­caf World Cup Group B qual­i­fi­er at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, from 7.30 pm, is to win.

T&T is cur­rent­ly sec­ond in Group B qual­i­fiers with four points from two match­es, trail­ing Cos­ta Ri­ca, which has a max­i­mum of six points af­ter a 2-2 draw at home to St Kitts & Nevis and a 7-1 win on the road against Ba­hamas.

At the end of the round-robin se­ries, the top two teams will ad­vance to the next stage of the Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fiers.

Fol­low­ing Fri­day’s match ver­sus St Kitts & Nevis, the So­ca War­riors will then play away to Cos­ta Ri­ca on Tues­day (June 10), from 9 pm while St Kitts & Nevis is at home to Grena­da.

The 55-year-old Hug­gins who has been at the helm of his coun­try's na­tion­al team since Jan­u­ary 2022 was speak­ing to the lo­cal me­dia dur­ing his team's train­ing ses­sion at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Train­ing Field on Tues­day (June 2) ahead of Fri­day's (June 6) match.

A for­mer St Kitts & Nevis in­ter­na­tion­al with 11 goals in 36 ap­pear­ances, Hug­gins said, "This match against T&T is very im­por­tant for us small-is­land fed­er­a­tion and I think we have an op­por­tu­ni­ty and the best of chances play­ing against T&T.

"We are ac­cus­tomed to play­ing teams like that so I think we are at a lev­el where we can com­pete and make a favourable show­ing and hope­ful­ly win the game and top the group."

De­spite be­ing con­sid­ered un­der­dogs for the clash, a win for St Kitts & Nevis over T&T, and then an­oth­er vic­to­ry at home in their fi­nal match over Grena­da on Tues­day (June 10) will give them ten points and a spot in the Third Round of qual­i­fiers, a thought that Austin ad­mit­ted too.

He said, "The mind­set is a very se­ri­ous one, and we are very con­cen­trat­ed on what we are about to do, and the guys have been work­ing very hard on their fin­ish­ing be­cause if you don't fin­ish you can't win the game.

"So, it's im­por­tant we put the ball in the back of the net and play to­geth­er as a team, es­pe­cial­ly in the at­tack­ing third and al­so re­mem­ber that we have to be firm and com­pact in de­fence. So, once we get these things done on the field, we should be suc­cess­ful," said a re­laxed Hug­gins.

Asked about his game plan for Fri­day, Hug­gins replied con­fi­dent­ly that his team's game plan is to win. "Even if we get a draw then we have to win at home and we are ready as the team has been to­geth­er for a while train­ing and played a cou­ple prac­tice games against St Vin­cent & the Grenadines and Aguil­la."

On May 20, St Kitts & Nevis was beat­en 3-1 at St Vin­cent and the Grenadines be­fore the lat­ter al­so won on the road 3-0 on May 25, with St Kitts & Nevis beat­ing An­guil­la 4-2 in an­oth­er friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al on May 24.

Re­flect­ing on those match­es, Hug­gins said, "We were not re­al­ly fo­cus­ing on the win­ning part but more try­ing to get the team or­gan­ised and see where we were at in terms of our prepa­ra­tions for these up­com­ing match­es."

Com­pared to the squad of play­ers for the three re­cent friend­lies, Hug­gins said, "We have brought in about sev­en new play­ers to go with the 14 or so play­ers who are lo­cal­ly based in St Kitts & Nevis and I think we should be even­ly bal­anced."

St Kitts & Nevis squad

Za­y­keese Smith (Vil­lage Su­per­stars), Adri­an Samuel (Old Road Unit­ed Jets), Lyn­don David (St Pe­ter’s FC), De­nis Flem­ing (Vil­lage Su­per­stars), Malique Roberts (Cay­on FC), Or­dell Flem­ming (St Paul’s Unit­ed FC), An­wa Springer (Old Road Unit­ed Jets), Omar­i­on Liburd (Old Road Unit­ed Jets), Al­jay New­ton (Bath Unit­ed), Tyrique Davis (Cay­on FC), Jakiel Leader –(St Paul’s Unit­ed FC), Mervin Lewis (Cay­on FC), Yohannes Mitchum (Cay­on FC), Akanye Samuel-Fran­cis (Vil­lage Galaxy), Ti­quan­ny Williams (Old Road Unit­ed), Di­jhron Sim­monds (Cay­on FC), Ra­heem Fran­cis (Vil­lage Su­per­stars), Kei­throy Free­man (St Paul’s Unit­ed FC), Ki­ma­ree Rogers (Vil­lage Su­per­stars), Jav­ern Matthew ( Cona­ree FC), Gvaune Amory (Vil­lage Su­per­stars), Dio­n­is Stephens (St Pe­ter’s FC).

Coach­ing and Sup­port Staff

Austin Hug­gins (coach), Lester Mor­ris (se­nior as­sis­tant coach), Thrizen Leader (ju­nior as­sis­tant coach), TRavis Rogers (ju­nior as­sis­tant coach), Ja­mal Jef­fers (goal­keep­er coach), Mase­field Nis­bett (train­er), Ray­del Al­varez (phys­io­ther­a­pist), Leroy Sweeney (equip­ment man­agers). Roger Hen­dricks (equip­ment man­ag­er).