As ex­pect­ed T&T So­ca War­riors in­ter­im coach Derek King named Kevin Moli­no and Jo­evin Jones, both for­mer cap­tains of the So­ca War­riors in his 23-man squad for this coun­try’s fi­nal two match­es in Group B of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League against Cu­ba.

Both Moli­no, 33, and Jones, 34 make their re­turn to the team af­ter last rep­re­sent­ing T&T at the 2023 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in the USA un­der for­mer coach An­gus Eve.

King named his team yes­ter­day with Toron­to FC strik­er Tyrese Spicer, the num­ber one pick in last year's US Ma­jor League Soc­cer Draft, al­so be­ing in­clud­ed along with AC Port-of-Spain's John Paul Rochford and Po­lice FC goal­keep­er Adri­an Fon­cette while AEK Athens strik­er Levi Gar­cia is un­avail­able af­ter his club re­quest­ed that he be ex­cused from in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty at this time af­ter on­ly mak­ing his re­turn to ac­tion as a 66th-minute sub­sti­tute in their 1-0 loss to Pane­to­likos yes­ter­day.

The team of lo­cal­ly-based play­ers and tech­ni­cal staff will de­part T&T to­day for San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba via Mi­a­mi and the en­tire squad is ex­pect­ed to as­sem­ble in San­ti­a­go on Mon­day morn­ing ahead of the team’s first train­ing ses­sion lat­er that day ahead of Thurs­day's match at the An­to­nio Maceo Sta­di­um from 4 pm in San­ti­a­go De Cu­ba.

The team will then re­turn home to face the same op­po­nent at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let, To­ba­go on Oc­to­ber 14 in a 9 pm kick-off.

Moli­no had an­nounced his in­ter­na­tion­al re­tire­ment on Sep­tem­ber 1, 2023, af­ter 59 ap­pear­ances and 29 goals for the So­ca War­riors, cit­ing dif­fer­ences with Eve.

He was then re­leased by US Ma­jor League Soc­cer’s Colum­bus Crew on Feb­ru­ary 4, 2024, and has been with­out a club since, while 33-year-old Jones, who has fea­tured 87 times for the na­tion­al se­nior team with 12 goals to his name, al­so had his last run out for T&T at the 2023 Gold Cup but has been in­volved in the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League ac­tion for Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC in the CON­CA­CAF Caribbean Cup.

Among the oth­er play­ers who were part of the team for last month's two match­es and not called up by King this time around were de­fend­ers Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery/USA), and An­dre Ray­mond (St John­stone FC/Scot­land); the mid­field­er trio of Du­ane Muck­ette (AC Port-of-Spain), Stef­fen Yeates (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da) and Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land), and strik­ers Re­on Moore (Pa­cif­ic FC/Cana­da), and Kaile Au­vray (Cav­a­liers FC/Ja­maica).

The So­ca War­riors will go in­to the match with Cu­ba with on­ly one point af­ter two match­es in the six-team round-robin group af­ter a 4-0 loss away to Hon­duras and a 0-0 home draw with French Guiana and go­ing in­to their fi­nal two match­es, T&T, who reached the semi­fi­nals last time out be­fore falling to the USA on a home-and-away ag­gre­gate 5-3 need to win both match­es to have a chance at a top two group fin­ish.

French Guiana al­so has one in Group B but sits ahead of T&T on goal dif­fer­ence while Ja­maica and Nicaragua share the lead with four points each, with Hon­duras next with three and Cu­ba fourth with two points.

Af­ter the group stage, the first and sec­ond-place teams of each group will ad­vance to the quar­ter­fi­nals, where they will join the four top-ranked League A teams (Mex­i­co, USA, Pana­ma, and Cana­da) from which the win­ners will ad­vance to the 2025 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League semi­fi­nals and qual­i­fy for the 2025 Gold Cup while the losers will ad­vance to the 2025 Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nar­ies.

King and his team will al­so be mind­ful of get­ting out of the bot­tom two in their group ta­ble as at the end of the round-robin phase the fifth and sixth-placed teams will be rel­e­gat­ed to League B.

In the pre­vi­ous meet­ing be­tween the two teams in Cu­ba, T&T were 3-1 win­ners in a 2010 World Cup qual­i­fi­er played in 2008 in Ha­vana.

T&T would go on to win the re­turn qual­i­fi­er 3-0 in Port of Spain. T&T al­so won the 2015 Gold Cup meet­ing 2-0 while Cu­ba was 1-0 win­ners when both na­tions met in the 2012 Caribbean Cup fi­nal in An­tigua.

T&T Squad

Goal­keep­ers: Christo­pher Biggette(De­fence Force), Den­zil Smith (AC Port-of-Spain), Adri­an Fon­cette (Po­lice FC).

De­fend­ers: Aubrey David (CS De­porti­vo Mu­nic­i­pal/Guatemala), Tris­ton Hodge (Hart­ford Ath­let­ic/USA),, Shan­non Gomez (San An­to­nion FC/USA), Alvin Jones (Po­lice FC), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), Shel­don Bateau (SK Bev­eren/Bel­gium), Ross Rus­sell Jr (Po­lice FC).

Mid­field­ers: John Pual Rochford (AC PoS), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Dan­taye Gilbert (Jong PSV/Hol­land), Noah Pow­der (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm/USA), Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice FC), Kevin Moli­no (un­at­tached), Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Michel Poon Angeron (AC PoS)

For­wards: Ryan Telfer (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Nathaniel James (Mount Pleas­ant/Ja­maica), Re­al Gill (North­ern Col­orado Hail­storm), Kevon Wood­ley (Po­lice FC), Tyrese Spicer (Toron­to FC/Cana­da)

Tech­ni­cal staff: Derek King (in­ter­im coach), Walt Nor­ie­ga (as­sis­tant coach), Ross Rus­sell (goal­keep­er coach), Adar­ryl John (ath­let­ic train­er), Saron Joseph (strength and con­di­tion­ing coach), Joseph Rooplal (mas­sage ther­a­pist), Michael Williams (equip­ment man­ag­er), Dr Akash Dhanai (doc­tor), Shaun Fuentes (me­dia of­fi­cer), Richard Piper (man­ag­er)