Pro­lif­ic vet­er­an goal scor­er Kevon "Show­time" Wood­ley was re­called to the T&T team which will con­test the Con­ca­caf Beach Soc­cer World Cup Qual­i­fiers at the Mal­colm Park Beach Soc­cer Fa­cil­i­ty in Nas­sau, Ba­hamas from March 11-16.

The team left on Thurs­day in two batch­es, with na­tion­al coach Chad Ap­poo and the rest of his staff sched­uled to leave to­day. Ap­poo said since Wood­ley was not cho­sen for the last two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­lies in Ja­maica, he ap­proached the play­er and was giv­en a com­mit­ment from him that he would play.

Wood­ley is the coun­try's all-time lead­ing goal scor­er who will head a fair­ly young team. Ap­poo said the coun­try has al­ways emerged from the group phase but has nev­er got­ten past the quar­ter­fi­nal rounds.

"This is ob­jec­tive num­ber one, to get out of the group stage. Then we in­tend to get in­to the semi­fi­nal round for the first time," Ap­poo said.

This re­al­i­ty doesn't seem to be too far-fetched now as the new for­mat of bring­ing the top eight-seed­ed team in the Con­ca­caf re­gion, means you on­ly have to qual­i­fy as one of the top two teams in the group to be a semi­fi­nal­ist.

Apart from the host na­tion, Ap­poo's charges have been stacked in a group with Pana­ma and the USA. The oth­er group fea­tures Cos­ta Ri­ca, El Sal­vador, Mex­i­co and Guatemala.

T&T will open its cam­paign on Tues­day against the Unit­ed States, a team they went down to 5-0 the last time they met in 2023. They will face the Pana­ma­ni­ans on March 12 be­fore com­plet­ing the group stage against the host na­tion a day lat­er (March 13).

Ap­poo said the re­sults against both Pana­ma and the Ba­hamas have been shared as they have both won and lost against them.

"I think the Ba­hami­ans are the team we have played against the most and we have beat­en them more times, so it can go any way," Ap­poo said.

The com­pe­ti­tion will get go­ing on Mon­day (March 11) with a round-robin play-off in the groups, af­ter which the two best teams in each group will progress to the knock­out stage, which in­cludes a di­rect elim­i­na­tion in the semi­fi­nals be­fore the two fi­nal­ists are de­ter­mined.

There will be a third-place play-off while the two fi­nal­ists will earn qual­i­fy­ing berths to the World Cup.

T&T TEAM

GOAL­KEEP­ERS: Zane Cok­er, Jabari Gray

FIXED/DE­FENCE: Jesse Bai­ley, Ka­iron Joseph, An­der­son Pe­ters

WING/MID: Shane Hospedales, Kevon Williams, Jor­dan Ri­ley, Jayson Joseph

PIV­OT/FOR­WARD: Kevon Wood­ley, Ka­reem Per­ry, Aki­no­la Gre­go­ry