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Thursday, July 10, 2025

Soca Warriors go after point in final Group B qualifier

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30 days ago
20250610
Trainer Anthony Crea, left, looks on as he takes the players through their paces, yesterday ahead of tonight's World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Trainer Anthony Crea, left, looks on as he takes the players through their paces, yesterday ahead of tonight's World Cup qualifier against Costa Rica in San Jose, Costa Rica.

Courtesy TTFA Media

It's go­ing to be a bat­tle to the end for the T&T So­ca War­riors at 9 pm on Tues­day night (June 10) when they face Cos­ta Ri­ca at the Es­ta­dio Na­cional de Cos­ta Ri­ca in San Jose in the fi­nal Group B con­test of the Con­ca­caf World Cup Qual­i­fiers.

Na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke said at a press con­fer­ence Mon­day (June 9) that while he ex­pects a com­pet­i­tive game, as his­to­ry has al­ways shown be­tween the teams, he hopes to get the bet­ter of the Cos­ta Ri­can at home this time.

The War­riors are fresh off a 6-2 vic­to­ry over St Kitts & Nevis at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um in Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain on Fri­day, but they need at least a point to­day to be sure of a sec­ond-placed fin­ish in the group.

With sev­en points from three match­es, the lo­cal team can top the group with a win over the home team, but re­gion­al ri­val Grena­da can cre­ate some dis­com­fort should they win against St Kitts & Nevis from 3 pm at Warn­er Park in Bas­seterre, a re­sult that will take them lev­el on points with T&T on sev­en.

In T&T's favour, though, a loss for T&T Tues­day night would re­quire the Grena­di­ans to beat St Kitts & Nevis by a huge mar­gin, to get the bet­ter on goal dif­fer­ence.

Yorke's main con­cern is the usu­al slow start, which forces his team to con­cede ear­ly goals and chase af­ter­wards.

"We are still de­vel­op­ing in those ar­eas. We al­ways seem to be a team, which I con­sid­er a re­ac­tive team rather than a proac­tive team, which means that we al­ways seem to con­cede and then go af­ter teams to try and win a game.

"But even though, we are get­ting bet­ter in those ar­eas, these are the kind of games that you have to try and have clean sheets, in terms of try­ing to win games. It's an area that we're try­ing to im­prove in oth­er words, but we know that there's a lot of work to be done in that area," Yorke ex­plained.

The top two teams from Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F will ad­vance to a fi­nal home-and-away play-off of 12, where the teams will play in three groups of four teams. From these play­offs, the win­ning team in each group will qual­i­fy for the World Cup, while the best sec­ond-placed team will ad­vance to a play-off with the oth­er con­ti­nents.

Yorke, tak­en back to the 1989 World Cup cam­paign in which the Cos­ta Ri­cans were held 1-1 by the T&T team in the first match but won the sec­ond match 1-0 be­fore mov­ing on to top the fi­nal-round qual­i­fiers and qual­i­fied for the World Cup in Italy, said he was a young boy at age 18 and didn't un­der­stand the con­cept of pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball.

He told the me­dia that now, as the coach of the T&T team, he un­der­stands what it takes to come to Cos­ta Ri­ca and then to get a re­sult, say­ing: "I ex­pect my team to com­pete at all lev­els and we will, I can as­sure you that. So, I ex­pect the two teams to go at each oth­er, and maybe on this oc­ca­sion we will get the bet­ter of Cos­ta Ri­ca at home."

The last time the two teams met was back in 2017 when Cos­ta Ri­ca won 2-1 in a tense bat­tle. Yorke said he is ex­pect­ing the same kind of match tonight.

The Cos­ta Ri­cans are set to be boost­ed by the re­turn of vet­er­an goal­keep­er Key­lor Navas, who has come out of re­tire­ment.

GROUP B MATCH­ES

T&T vs Cos­ta Ri­ca, Es­ta­dio Na­cional de Cost Ri­ca, San Jose, 9 pm

Grena­da vs St Kitts & Nevis, Warn­er Park, Bas­seterre, 3 pm

STAND­INGS

Team*PTS*MP*W*L*D*GF*GA*GD

1*Cos­ta Ri­ca*9*3*3*0*0*15*0*15

2*T&T*7*3*2*0*1*15*5*10

3*Grena­da*4*3*1*1*1*8*5*3

4*Saint Kitts & Nevis*3*3*1*2*0*3*10*-7

5*Ba­hamas*0*4*0*4*0*1*22*-21


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