Kevon Vil­laroel and Akeem “Bat­tery” Ben­jamin have re­turned to the San Juan Jabloteh team in its bid to se­cure a CON­CA­CAF qual­i­fy­ing spot from the Pro League cam­paign.

The duo is ex­pect­ed to be part of coach Kei­th Jef­frey’s squad to face Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed in the first match of a dou­ble­head­er to­mor­row from 6 pm at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, when Pro League ac­tion re­sumes from the in­ter­na­tion­al break. In the oth­er game, De­fence Force FC will take on Club San­do at 8 pm.

Vil­laroel, 30, a left back, rep­re­sent­ed the San Juan club be­tween 2007 and 2008, be­fore join­ing Queen's Park Crick­et Club FC, and played al­so for Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers, Cen­tral FC and North East Stars.

Ben­jamin, on the oth­er hand, rep­re­sent­ed W Con­nec­tion and Cen­tral FC as a cen­tre-back, be­fore re­new­ing his com­mit­ment to Jabloteh.

Jef­frey said af­ter as­sess­ing his team’s bot­tom-place fin­ish in the group stage of the First Cit­i­zens Cup, it was clear his side lacked a leader. In ad­di­tion to the duo, Jef­frey al­so wel­comed the re­turn of de­fen­sive mid­field­er El­ton John, ex­pect­ed to be the team's cap­tain, and vet­er­an strik­er Ja­son Mar­cano.

Ac­cord­ing to Jef­frey John, Mar­cano, Vil­laroel and Ben­jamin all have ex­ten­sive ex­pe­ri­ence as mul­ti­ple-time for­mer pro league win­ners, as well as ex­pe­ri­ence on the Con­ca­caf and Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship stage.

Jef­frey said he is dream­ing of re­turn­ing to the in­ter­na­tion­al stage and wants his play­ers to share his am­bi­tion.

To do so, Jef­frey’s side must achieve a top-two fin­ish at the pro league to qual­i­fy. North East Stars and W Con­nec­tion, the most suc­cess­ful clubs on the Caribbean stage, will rep­re­sent T&T at next year’s Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship, as pro league cham­pi­ons and run­ners-up re­spec­tive­ly in 2017.

Jabloteh is cur­rent­ly sec­ond on the stand­ings with 13 points, three adrift lead­ers W Con­nec­tion with 12 games left, while De­fence Force, Cen­tral FC and Club San­do are close be­hind on 10 points.

“We are hap­py to be chal­leng­ing again be­cause Jabloteh has al­ways been one of the bet­ter teams in the Pro League,” said Jef­frey, whose team start­ed the cam­paign un­beat­en in five match­es.

“The goal is to fin­ish in the top two. I want us to go back to Con­ca­caf.” Jef­frey guid­ed Jabloteh to a top-two fin­ish in the 2015-16 sea­son, to join the Cou­va Sharks at the 2017 Caribbean Club Cham­pi­onship.

Jabloteh, un­der Jef­frey, went on to the Caribbean fi­nal be­fore be­ing edged 1-0 by Cibao FC of Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic at the Sta­di­um.

“I want my play­ers to dream as the coach. It is an ho­n­our play­ing at CON­CA­CAF lev­el, and it’s al­so an ho­n­our coach­ing at that lev­el. I want our young play­ers to ex­pe­ri­ence a whole new lev­el of the game. The ex­pe­ri­ence of trav­el­ling abroad for home and away games. The way the in­ter­na­tion­al clubs are man­aged. The pro­fes­sion­al­ism of play­ers on the in­ter­na­tion­al lev­el and dif­fer­ent play­ing styles. These are some of the ways our play­ers can im­prove.”

Pro League 2018

Round One Match Day Sev­en

(Fri­day 14 Sep­tem­ber):

Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed vs San Juan Jabloteh, 6pm at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um;

De­fence Force FC vs Club San­do, 8pm at Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

(Sat­ur­day 15 Sep­tem­ber)

Point Fortin Civic vs W Con­nec­tion, 6pm at Ma­haica Oval;

Ter­minix St. Ann’s Rangers vs Cen­tral FC, 4pm at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um;

Po­lice FC vs North East Stars, 6pm at Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.