This week is a make-or-break week for the Trinidad and To­ba­go men’s se­nior na­tion­al foot­ball team. The re­sults of the up­com­ing fix­tures will go a long way in de­ter­min­ing if the red, white and black uni­form will grace the fields of the 2026 FI­FA World Cup.

The team sen­si­bly spent the week away from all the hus­tle, bus­tle and ex­cite­ment, prepar­ing for the up­com­ing games while camp­ing out in Mi­a­mi, USA, be­fore leav­ing for Bermu­da Wednes­day.

I would ex­pect that, while in camp, Coach Dwight Yorke is ready­ing his troops both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly for the chal­leng­ing tasks that lie ahead, in­clud­ing the “Gombey War­riors” of Bermu­da and then the “Blue Stars” of Cu­raçao. Both match­es have to be con­sid­ered as ‘must-win’ games. For­tu­nate­ly enough, both of the games, on pa­per, are en­tire­ly winnable for the T&T squad.

Bermu­da is cur­rent­ly prop­ping up the stand­ings of Group B, hav­ing lost both their open­ing games to Ja­maica and to Cu­ra­cao.

Their de­fence ap­pears to be leaky, hav­ing con­ced­ed an alarm­ing­ly gen­er­ous sev­en goals in their first 2 games.

While the “Gombey War­riors” man­aged a brief, spir­it­ed ral­ly against Cu­raçao, claw­ing back to 2-2 be­fore even­tu­al­ly suc­cumb­ing 3-2, it sug­gests a vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty that Yorke’s men will seek to ex­ploit. If this last re­sult is any­thing to go by, though, the warn­ing sign is clear: treat Bermu­da with any­thing less than fo­cused in­ten­si­ty, and you’ll find your­self in a dog­fight.

T&T can’t af­ford to be com­pla­cent like Cu­raçao was, think­ing that be­cause Ja­maica beat them eas­i­ly, they’ll get a pass. In foot­ball, as in life, ar­ro­gance al­most al­ways pre­cedes the spec­tac­u­lar face­plant, which Cu­raçao man­aged to nar­row­ly avoid.

Cu­raçao, on the oth­er hand, seems to have been blessed by the fick­le gods of for­tune. They were lucky to come away with a draw against T&T and an equal­ly for­tu­nate win against the Bermu­di­ans. They’re sit­ting pret­ty with four points, but their record sug­gests they’ve been skat­ing on thin ice—or per­haps, thin ar­ti­fi­cial turf (more on that lat­er). Coach Yorke and his squad, I’m sure, have been burn­ing the mid­night oil, re­view­ing the tapes and dis­sect­ing the Cu­raçaoan weak­ness­es to ex­ploit them in this re­turn game.

The game against the Bermu­di­ans, which kicks off at 6:00 pm to­mor­row, is cru­cial for build­ing mo­men­tum and should give the na­tion­al team the lift it needs to tack­le Cu­raçao. The one con­cern in Cu­raçao is that the Ergilio Ha­to sta­di­um, which has a ca­pac­i­ty of 10,000 spec­ta­tors, us­es ar­ti­fi­cial turf, which is FI­FA cer­ti­fied. It means the T&T team will have to adapt quick­ly to the con­di­tions if they are to get the bet­ter of the men from Cu­raçao in the game slat­ed to kick off next Tues­day at 7.00 pm.

Se­cur­ing two vic­to­ries this week would im­me­di­ate­ly place Trinidad and To­ba­go back in­to strong con­tention for one of the top two spots in Group B. Ja­maica is go­ing to Cu­raçao on Fri­day, and I ex­pect a tough game for both teams, which con­ve­nient­ly serves T&T’s pur­pos­es.

That gru­elling con­test should leave Cu­raçao phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly de­plet­ed just four days be­fore their reck­on­ing with T&T. Who knows what state the Cu­raçaoans will be in?

Now is the time to ral­ly be­hind Coach Yorke and the team. Even though T&T sits third on one point with four games re­main­ing, a per­fect record (win­ning all 4 games) would yield 12 points, putting T&T on a to­tal of 13 points and al­most cer­tain­ly guar­an­tee­ing ad­vance­ment. Af­ter Bermu­da and Cu­raçao, Ja­maica and Bermu­da come to Trinidad and To­ba­go in No­vem­ber 2025, and these are cer­tain­ly en­coun­ters that can be won at home at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, with twen­ty thou­sand fans cheer­ing on the team. Fans have to ral­ly rather than be crit­i­cal.

Four games re­main, and four wins are far from a ‘pie in the sky’. Yorke was hired to get T&T to the World Cup, and the cam­paign is still very much alive.

The pos­si­bil­i­ty ex­ists that even if Yorke’s men do not get to 13 points but get to 11 (3 wins and a draw), this could be enough to se­cure 2nd place in Group B.

Giv­en the close con­tests across Groups A and C, where top teams like Pana­ma and Cos­ta Ri­ca are cur­rent­ly strug­gling, the points are so tight that the win­ner of those groups may just about get to 11 or 12 points.

This beau­ti­ful par­i­ty in the oth­er groups means that a sec­ond-place fin­ish in T&T’s Group B stands an ex­cel­lent chance to earn a berth in the cov­et­ed In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Play­offs, and T&T would get a sec­ond ‘bite of the Bob­bie’ try­ing to qual­i­fy for the elu­sive World Cup.

Look­ing at the oth­er groups, all eight teams can still qual­i­fy for the top spots. In Group A, Pana­ma, who would have been favourites to come out of that group, are un­der pres­sure with 2 draws and face El Sal­vador, who are 1 point bet­ter off than them. The sur­prise pack­age is the leader, Suri­name, who faces bot­tom-place Guatemala in a game which Guatemala has to win, or their fi­nal three match­es could see them play­ing for pride. Things are so tight in Group A; a win for any team can turn the ta­bles.

In Group C, there is a sim­i­lar sto­ry with favourites Cos­ta Ri­ca, who are al­so strug­gling with 2 draws, and they face the lead­ers, Hon­duras, who have 4 points.

A win for “Los Ticos” could pro­pel them past Hon­duras to the top of the stand­ings. How­ev­er, Haiti, al­so with 2 draws, faces the bot­tom team, Nicaragua, fresh off that in­cred­i­ble draw with Cos­ta Ri­ca, and a vic­to­ry for Haiti could see them go to the top of the leader­board.

It tru­ly is all to play for. Let us ral­ly and wish the T&T na­tion­al team the best of luck in their two away en­coun­ters.

Be­fore clos­ing, I must pay trib­ute to the pass­ing of the leg­end Bernard Julien. BJ, as he was fond­ly called, was an ex­tra­or­di­nary tal­ent whose stats sim­ply do not do jus­tice to the sheer scope of his skills. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, he was un­fair­ly brand­ed ear­ly in his ca­reer as the next Gar­ry Sobers sim­ply be­cause, like Sir Gar­ry, he did it all. He bowled fast medi­um, slow left-arm or­tho­dox, and even dab­bled in left-arm wrist spin. The man was the Swiss Army knife of crick­et, with the on­ly no­table dif­fer­ence from Sir Gar­ry be­ing his right-hand­ed bat­ting stance.

He al­so played foot­ball at the school­boy lev­el for his al­ma mater, St Mary’s Col­lege. Off the field, BJ was the ul­ti­mate ‘saga boy’ — charis­mat­ic, mag­net­ic, and al­ways ready with a smile.

He had a per­son­al­i­ty that could charm the paint off a wall. BJ al­ways had a joke for you. Just as you thought you were es­cap­ing a con­ver­sa­tion, he’d lean in and say, “Wait, hold on, hear this one,” be­fore un­leash­ing the most glo­ri­ous­ly corn­ball joke you’d ever heard, wait­ing for your in­evitable groan. Even when you called it the worst joke in record­ed his­to­ry, he’d sim­ply laugh and say, “OK, hear this one!” That was my cue to say, “BJ, I’m gone, good­bye.” This time, my friend, I was not able to say good­bye, but may you rest in eter­nal peace. To his fam­i­ly, friends, and his favourite niece, Denise, my sin­cer­est con­do­lences, for no one did it like BJ!