De­fend­er An­dre Ray­mond has sent a stern warn­ing to T&T’s coun­ter­parts ahead of Fri­day’s en­counter be­tween the se­nior men’s foot­ball team and Cu­ba for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup Qual­i­fiers in San­ti­a­go, Cu­ba.

“We’re com­ing!” said Ray­mond in an in­ter­view, yes­ter­day ahead of So­ca War­riors’ match which kicks off at 4 pm.

It will be the first of two match­es for ei­ther team to seal a place in the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup to be host­ed joint­ly by Cana­da and the Unit­ed States from June 14. The fi­nal is sched­uled to be played on Ju­ly 6 at NRG Sta­di­um in Hous­ton, Texas, USA.

How­ev­er, the ma­jor­i­ty of the tour­na­ment’s venues will be in the West­ern Unit­ed States to avoid sched­ul­ing con­flicts with the 2025 FI­FA Club World Cup, which will be held around the same time pri­mar­i­ly on the East Coast.

The So­ca War­riors touched down in Flori­da, yes­ter­day for a camp at Bar­ry Uni­ver­si­ty in Mi­a­mi.

Ray­mond, who has close to ten caps for T&T, signed a two-year deal with Scot­tish club St John­stone last year, and fol­low­ing a call-up by na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke, he said he is ea­ger to im­press the gaffer.

He joined sev­er­al play­ers who he played with while mak­ing the tran­si­tion from ju­nior to se­nior lev­els, but it was not his on­ly de­sire to be back in the T&T set-up. Yes­ter­day, Ray­mond told the me­dia he has nev­er played in the Gold Cup be­fore.

“It has been my first time in a lit­tle while, so I have to get ac­cus­tomed to the boys and try to learn the style of play that the coach wants us to play be­fore the game ahead. That is im­por­tant be­cause we are in a re­build­ing phase, and it would give us the con­fi­dence for the World Cup Qual­i­fiers. And I have not played in a Gold Cup be­fore, so I want to be a part of that,” Ray­mond said.

“I am thank­ful and I’m ea­ger to be back in the squad to make an im­pres­sion for the new coach. Since Jan­u­ary I haven’t been play­ing and stuff, so I went on loan to a new team so I am just hap­py to be back play­ing and do­ing what I am sup­posed to do.”

The T&T team is yet to eke out a win un­der Yorke, who came in as a re­place­ment for An­gus Eve, last year. In three in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es to date, the So­ca War­riors were beat­en by Sau­di Ara­bia 3-1, and lost 1-0 to re­gion­al ri­vals Ja­maica, be­fore play­ing to a 1-1 tie with the “Reg­gae Boyz” in the sec­ond of two match­es.

Yorke told the me­dia af­ter the two Ja­maican games that he was not wor­ried about the re­sult just yet, as he was still build­ing for the Cuban games and the World Cup qual­i­fiers, which will re­sume in June with a clash with St Kitts and Nevis at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain.