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Friday, May 30, 2025

Soca Warriors hunt Gold Cup ticket in Bacolet

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795 days ago
20230327
T&T Soca Warriors’ midfielder Kaile Auvray, centre, pushes his team into an attacking position despite the presence of two players from the Bahamas in their penultimate CONCACAF Nations League B Group C match at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas on Friday. T&T won 3-0.

T&T Soca Warriors’ midfielder Kaile Auvray, centre, pushes his team into an attacking position despite the presence of two players from the Bahamas in their penultimate CONCACAF Nations League B Group C match at the Thomas A Robinson Stadium in Nassau, Bahamas on Friday. T&T won 3-0.

Courtesy TTFA

nigel.si­mon@guardian.co.tt

T&T So­ca War­riors cap­tain Jo­evin Jones and his team­mates will be go­ing all out in their must-win match against Nicaragua tonight when both teams meet in their fi­nal CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League B Group C match at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let in To­ba­go from 8 pm.

For the An­gus Eve-coached So­ca War­riors, the math is sim­ple in what is ex­pect­ed to be a full ca­pac­i­ty crowd of 8,000 spec­ta­tors, as a win against group-lead­ing Cen­tral Amer­i­cans will see them top the four-team round-robin group and gain pro­mo­tion to League A as well as qual­i­fy for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup lat­er this year from which the top six CON­CA­CAF na­tions will qual­i­fy for the 2024 Co­pa Amer­i­ca.

The win­ners and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers from the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League A Groups and the win­ners of each group in League B will di­rect­ly qual­i­fy for the Gold Cup, while the sec­ond-place teams from the League B groups and the third-place teams from League A will join the win­ners of each League C group in the Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nary play­offs.

This means, should Nicaragua win or avoid de­feat then they will qual­i­fy au­to­mat­i­cal­ly for the Gold Cup and gain pro­mo­tion to League A while T&T will be left to con­test a pre­lim­i­nary round of Gold Cup qual­i­fiers.

On Fri­day last, the So­ca War­riors used a first-half blitz to down Ba­hamas 3-0 at Thomas A Robin­son Sta­di­um in Nas­sau, with a goal each from Ka­reem Moses, cap­tain Jones, and Ryan Telfer for their fourth win in five match­es to move to 12 points, one adrift of the Nicaraguans who whipped St Vin­cent and The Grenadines 4-1 in Man­agua al­so on Fri­day night ahead of their show­down with the So­ca War­riors.

When both teams met back on match day one on June 3, Nicaragua edged a 2-1 vic­to­ry in Man­agua with By­ron Bonil­la scor­ing a 78th-minute win­ner in a con­test that was de­layed mid­way in the sec­ond half due to a pow­er out­age with the So­ca War­riors in the as­cen­den­cy/

Ear­li­er on Jo­sue Qui­jano put Nicaragua ahead in the 45th minute, with a left-foot­ed shot that took a slight de­flec­tion off Ecuador-based T&T de­fend­er Aubrey David which his team held on­to, un­til a minute in­to the sec­ond half when USA-based Shan­non Gomez de­flect­ed off of Nicaragua de­fend­er Chris­t­ian Reyes and in­to the back of the net.

For Eve, de­fend­er Ke­ston Julien, 24, of Moldo­va cham­pi­ons Sher­iff FC will be avail­able to join the squad af­ter miss­ing the Ba­hamas en­counter due to visa is­sues while the Nicaragua squad is ex­pect­ed to be un­changed from their win at home on Fri­day last.

In the oth­er match in the group, St Vin­cent and The Grenadines will host the Ba­hamas at the Arnos Vale Sta­di­um, Kingstown with the host on­ly need­ing a draw to avoid de­mo­tion to League C.

MI­A­MI, Flori­da, USA—Haiti, Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Hon­duras all qual­i­fied for the 2023 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup fol­low­ing the re­sults of their match­es on Sat­ur­day in the 2022-23 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League.

Haiti de­feat­ed Montser­rat 4-0 to claim the top spot in Group B of League B to clinch their Gold Cup place.

Cana­da topped Cu­ra­cao 2-0 to se­cure at least a sec­ond-place fin­ish in Group C of League A, thus qual­i­fy­ing them for the Gold Cup. Even though they were not in ac­tion, the Cana­da win al­so as­sured Hon­duras a berth in this sum­mer’s Gold Cup as well.

Cos­ta Ri­ca will al­so play in the Gold Cup again af­ter ral­ly­ing late from a 1-0 deficit to claim a 2-1 win in Mar­tinique in Group B of League A.

Haiti, Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca and Hon­duras join the Unit­ed States, Mex­i­co, El Sal­vador, Pana­ma and Ja­maica as teams that have punched their tick­et to this sum­mer’s tour­na­ment.

The win­ners and sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers from the League A groups and the win­ners of each group in League B group will di­rect­ly for the Gold Cup.

The sec­ond-place teams from the League B groups and the third-place teams from League A will join the win­ners of each League C group in the Gold Cup Pre­lims.

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