T&T's mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no, 34, has signed with Trinidad and To­ba­go Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) club, De­fence Force F.C., mark­ing a re­turn to do­mes­tic pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball for the first time in over thir­teen years hav­ing rep­re­sent­ed lo­cal clubs San Juan Jabloteh and Ma Pau S.C. pre­vi­ous­ly.

The an­nounce­ment was made via the De­fence Force team's In­sta­gram page late on Thurs­day night.

The De­fence Force's post stat­ed, "Kevin Moli­no, a sea­soned foot­baller with an il­lus­tri­ous ca­reer both do­mes­ti­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly, qual­i­fied for the Trinidad and To­ba­go team, where he earned the role of cap­tain. He has scored piv­otal goals for Trinidad and To­ba­go in World Cup Qual­i­fiers and CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup tour­na­ments."

Hours be­fore the an­nounce­ment on Thurs­day af­ter­noon, Guardian Me­dia Sport vis­it­ed the 'Tetron Boys' train­ing ses­sion at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um's Train­ing Field, Mu­cu­rapo, where Moli­no was seen train­ing with his soon-to-be team­mates. 

New­ly in­stalled De­fence Force head coach Den­sill Theobald said on­ly, "I know you all have seen Kevin Moli­no here, but that is a sit­u­a­tion of him just want­i­ng to train and want­i­ng to be part of the squad. So we will see what takes place in the near fu­ture re­gard­ing his sit­u­a­tion."

How­ev­er, Theobald went on to make his ad­mi­ra­tion of the play­er clear: "I love him, I wel­come him, I think he has a fan­tas­tic foot­ball brain, and I think his ex­pe­ri­ence will serve well once all works out."

Moli­no al­so laud­ed the move by say­ing, "It is an ho­n­our for me to be a part of the De­fence Force fam­i­ly, and to re­turn to where it all start­ed for me is just spe­cial. I am very ex­cit­ed for the up­com­ing sea­son."

The de­vel­op­ment means that when sea­son three of the TTPFL kicks off on No­vem­ber 22, 2024, it will mark the first time since the 2010-2011 sea­son that Moli­no plays for a lo­cal club. That sea­son he turned out for the now de­funct Ma Pau S.C. be­fore be­ing trans­ferred to the then USL team Or­lan­do City S.C. in March 2011, where he would go on to spend six sea­sons, three in the USL and three in the MLS, scor­ing 36 goals in 121 ap­pear­ances.

Dur­ing his Or­lan­do City USL ca­reer, Moli­no won the USL Pro Cup twice (2011 & 2013), the Com­mis­sion­er's Cup three times (2011, 2012 & 2014), and was twice vot­ed USL Pro Most Valu­able Play­er (MVP) in 2012 and 2014.

The 2008 Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League In­ter­col win­ner with Mu­cu­rapo Se­nior Com­pre­hen­sive was Or­lan­do City's first sign­ing when the club tran­si­tioned to Ma­jor League Soc­cer as the league's 21st fran­chise for the 2015 sea­son, be­fore earn­ing a US$650,000 move to Min­neso­ta Unit­ed in 2017, in what was then the joint-largest trans­fer in league his­to­ry.

At Min­neso­ta, he net­ted 21 goals in 67 ap­pear­ances over three sea­sons but was ham­pered by a left ACL in­jury.

In 2020 he made an­oth­er move, this time to an­oth­er MLS club, Colum­bus Crew, where an­oth­er ACL in­jury—the third of his ca­reer—al­so lim­it­ed his per­for­mances to two goals from 31 ap­pear­ances in two sea­sons. How­ev­er, in what would be his fi­nal sea­son at Colum­bus and his fi­nal one in the MLS as a whole, Moli­no lift­ed the MLS Cup with Crew be­fore sub­se­quent­ly sign­ing a one-year con­tract ex­ten­sion at the end of the cam­paign.

His re­turn to foot­ball on the do­mes­tic cir­cuit co­in­cides with his re­turn to in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty for Trinidad and To­ba­go. Two CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League fix­tures against Cu­ba ear­li­er this month saw Moli­no suit up in red, white, and black for the first time in more than a year.

His ab­sence from the So­ca War­riors set-up was the re­sult of a pub­lic fall­out with then-head coach of the se­nior men's foot­ball team, An­gus Eve, fol­low­ing T&T's ex­it from the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup in Ju­ly 2023, prompt­ing Moli­no to re­tire from in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball in Sep­tem­ber that year.