T&T’s Se­nior Men’s Na­tion­al Foot­ball Team will face Sau­di Ara­bia in an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match on Sun­day at the Al Shabab Club Sta­di­um in Riyadh.

It will be the first in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly for coach Dwight Yorke since tak­ing over the So­ca War­riors. The en­counter will serve as prepa­ra­tion for the T&T ahead of their Gold Cup play­off against Cu­ba in March and the World Cup Qual­i­fiers, which re­sume in June with a clash against St Kitts/Nevis.

Mean­while, the Saud­is will use the en­counter as part of a build-up for the Ara­bi­an Gulf Cup lat­er in De­cem­ber.

Yorke has al­ready named a 23-man ros­ter for the match, which in­cludes cap­tain Aubrey David, who plies his trade in Guatemala, and Cana­di­an-based for­ward Re­on Moore. The ma­jor­i­ty of the squad com­pris­es home-based pro­fes­sion­als and play­ers from the re­cent train­ing camp, which re­flects Yorke’s com­mit­ment to fos­ter­ing lo­cal tal­ent.

Yorke in his first test with teh So­ca War­riors will be mi­nus a num­ber of its top play­ers such as Levi Gar­cia, Dan­taye Gilbert, Daniel Phillips, and An­dre Ram­per­sad among oth­ers due to the match be­ing played out­side of the FI­FA win­dow.

The teams have met four times be­fore, with the coun­try's se­nior foot­ballers de­feat­ing Sau­di Ara­bia 3-1 in a friend­ly match in 2013 at the King Fahd In­ter­na­tion­al Sta­di­um. Be­fore that, the Sau­di Ara­bi­ans earned vic­to­ries over the So­ca War­riors, 3-2 and 2-1, at the Richard Stock­ton Col­lege Sta­di­um in 1994 and at the Stade Pierre de Cou­bertin in 1998, re­spec­tive­ly.

The Saud­is re­cent­ly re­cruit­ed Herve Re­nard as their head coach for a sec­ond time in late Oc­to­ber. Re­nard pre­vi­ous­ly led Sau­di Ara­bia to a his­toric World Cup win over Ar­genti­na in 2022 and re­turns af­ter Rober­to Manci­ni’s de­par­ture.

The match is be­ing played out­side of the FI­FA in­ter­na­tion­al win­dow.

The T&T team will de­part Pi­ar­co In­ter­na­tion­al Air­port on Fri­day night, De­cem­ber 13, ahead of their jour­ney to Riyadh.

<Yorke’s Vi­sion for T&T Foot­ball>

Com­ment­ing on his de­but match as head coach, Yorke em­pha­sised the im­por­tance of the game as a step to­ward achiev­ing long-term ob­jec­tives.

“It will be an ho­n­our to lead the T&T na­tion­al team against Sau­di Ara­bia lat­er this month. The match rep­re­sents a ma­jor op­por­tu­ni­ty to cre­ate last­ing re­la­tion­ships with the Sau­di foot­ball fam­i­ly and their pas­sion­ate foot­ball fans,” Yorke told TTFA Me­dia.

“This fix­ture will al­so show­case the progress of both am­bi­tious, emerg­ing coun­tries and pro­vide an im­por­tant test ahead of our ma­jor tour­na­ment prepa­ra­tions, which in­clude the Gold Cup play­off and the World Cup qual­i­fiers. Sau­di Ara­bia’s tal­ent­ed play­ers gained friends all over the world, in­clud­ing the Caribbean, with their win over Ar­genti­na at the 2022 World Cup, and they will host ma­jor events in the fu­ture.

“My ex­cit­ing T&T squad is mo­ti­vat­ed to re­turn to the World Cup, 20 years af­ter I was proud to cap­tain my coun­try at the tour­na­ment in 2006. This game will be the first step in a jour­ney we take to­geth­er with play­ers who have giv­en great ser­vice as oth­ers work for the op­por­tu­ni­ty to join us along the way,” Yorke end­ed.

“This is an ex­cel­lent op­por­tu­ni­ty to as­sess the team’s readi­ness and im­ple­ment our strate­gies ahead of a crit­i­cal year. We are fo­cused on build­ing co­he­sion and en­sur­ing we are ful­ly pre­pared for the chal­lenges ahead, start­ing with the Gold Cup play­off,” Yorke stat­ed.

T&T's Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) Pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards ex­tend­ed his grat­i­tude to Sau­di Ara­bia for host­ing this match and looks for­ward to an ex­cit­ing con­test that will fur­ther en­hance both teams’ prepa­ra­tions for their re­spec­tive tour­na­ments.

“Se­cur­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly against Sau­di Ara­bia in Riyadh marks a sig­nif­i­cant step in our jour­ney as we con­tin­ue to build mo­men­tum for the fu­ture of Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball,” Ed­wards stat­ed.

“This match of­fers a valu­able op­por­tu­ni­ty for our team to test their skills against strong op­po­si­tion on an in­ter­na­tion­al stage. It’s al­so a his­toric mo­ment as Dwight Yorke leads the team for the first time in an in­ter­na­tion­al match as head coach. This is an­oth­er part of the ex­cit­ing new chap­ter for Trinidad and To­ba­go foot­ball.”

TT SQUAD

Christo­pher Biggette (De­fence Force), Aubrey David (De­porti­vo Mu­nic­i­pal, Guatemala), Jesse Williams (Chat­tanooga FC, USA)

Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids, USA)

Jariel Arthur (1976 Phoenix), Kevin Moli­no (De­fence Force), Jo­evin Jones (Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice), Isa­iah Lee (Ter­minex La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Adri­an Fon­cette (Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice), Du­ane Muck­ette (AC Port of Spain), Re­al Gill (Huntsville City, USA), Stef­fen Yeates (Pa­cif­ic FC, Cana­da), Re­on Moore (Pa­cif­ic FC, Cana­da), Shan­non Gomes (San An­to­nio FC, USA), Michel Poon-Angeron (AC Port of Spain)

Alvin Jones (Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice), Justin Gar­cia (De­fence Force), Kai­him Thomas (De­fence Force), Ross Rus­sell Jr (MIC Cen­tral FC),

Tyrese Bai­ley (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Ja­mal Jack (Club San­do), Ne­veal Hack­shaw (Oak­land Roots SC, USA), Isa­iah Gar­cia (De­fence Force)