Cana­di­an-born strik­er Mal­colm Shaw is the lone un­capped play­er in T&T coach An­gus Eve’s fi­nal 23-man ros­ter for the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup which be­gins to­day with pre­lim­i­nary first-round play­offs in Flori­da, USA.

Fol­low­ing Sun­day’s 1-0 friend­ly in­ter­na­tion­al win over Guatemala at Sub­aru Park, Chester, Penn­syl­va­nia, via a 53rd-minute penal­ty from Alvin Jones, the 52-year-old said his job of se­lect­ing his fi­nal squad from 60 play­ers named in the pre­lim­i­nary squad was made dif­fi­cult. T&T will com­pete in Group A with de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and host USA, Ja­maica and a qual­i­fi­er.

Af­ter de­lib­er­at­ing with the rest of his tech­ni­cal staff which in­cludes as­sis­tant coach­es Reynold Car­ring­ton, and Derek King, and goal­keep­er coach Clay­ton Ince along with man­ag­er Richard Piper, Eve name Shaw, 27, of Cana­di­an Pre­mier League strug­glers Atléti­co Ot­tawa along with strik­er Kadeem Corbin of Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers, winger Re­al Gill of Tiger Tanks Club San­do, Ka­reem Moses (FF Jaro/Fin­land), San An­to­nio FC’s Shan­non Gomez, USA-based Kaile Au­vray (Sport­ing Kansas), and lo­cal­ly-based goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith of W Con­nec­tion to their first Gold Cup team.

Com­ment­ing on his team, Eve first paid homage to the guys who helped the team qual­i­fy but just missed out on the fi­nal team se­lec­tion.

He said, “The guys who got us here like Re­on Moore, Justin Gar­cia, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, John-Paul Rochford, and Du­ane Muck­ette, I just would like to say that they are part of the team, but un­for­tu­nate­ly you can on­ly pick 23 at this point, and I al­so want to make men­tion of Nathaniel James, as well.”

With re­gards to his 23-man team, a con­fi­dent Eve said, “Look­ing at the squad that we have here we just thought this group was the best group for us to go for­ward with at this point.”

The rest of the team in­cludes vet­er­an AC Port-of-Spain goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip, 38, with 91 ap­pear­ances to his name; 28-year-old Alvin Jones, who is sev­en games short of 50 ap­pear­ances; Daniel Phillips (St John­ston/Scot­land), Shel­don Bateau (SK Bev­eren/Bel­gium), 87-time capped Po­lice FC’s Jo­evin Jones, Kevin Moli­no of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer’s Colum­bus Crew, Levi Gar­cia, who is com­ing off a Greek League and Cup dou­ble with AEK Athens, Le­land Archer (Charleston Bat­tery/USA), Nick­las Fren­derup (Ran­heim/Nor­way), Aubrey David (SD Au­cas/Ecuador), Ryan Telfer (Mi­a­mi FC/USA), Tris­tan Hodge (Hart­ford Ath­let­ic/USA), Mo­lik Khan (Min­neso­ta Unit­ed/USA), Ne­veal Hack­shaw (Oak­land Roots/USA), Ajani For­tune (At­lanta Unit­ed/USA), and An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da).

Eve said, “De­fen­sive­ly we have been very good as a team and no mat­ter what group we put on the pitch, be­cause yes I’m prag­mat­ic, that’s my style, and I know I’m not Pep Guardi­o­la (Man­ches­ter City coach), but the style is work­ing and we have played six games for the sea­son, and on­ly re­ceived one goal so far, So the team was picked with that in mind. We have a nice bal­ance of youth, and we have some nice young play­ers, who played Un­der-20 and have now grad­u­at­ed with a good blend of se­nior play­ers, and some in-be­tween play­ers who we think will au­gur well for us go­ing for­ward.”

On Mon­day night, Eve and T&T al­so got some wel­comed news that their protest against Nicaraguan who used an el­i­gi­ble play­er dur­ing the 2022 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League match­es was suc­cess­ful.

Based on the de­ci­sion, T&T now re­places Nicaragua in Group A of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup and will no longer be re­quired to com­pete in the Gold Cup pre­lim­i­nary round to­day ver­sus Guade­loupe, and will now kick off its cam­paign on June 25, at DRV PNK Sta­di­um, Fort Laud­erdale against a qual­i­fi­er the win­ner of the ties be­tween Cu­ra­cao/St Kitts and Nevis win­ner and the French Guiana/Sint Maarten win­ner from 3.30 pm.

Three days lat­er, T&T faces Ja­maica at City Park, St Louis at 6.30 pm be­fore end­ing round-robin play against USA on Ju­ly 2 at the Bank of Amer­i­ca Sta­di­um, Char­lotte at 7 pm.

The de­ci­sion by, Con­ca­caf al­so meant T&T, by virtue of be­ing the team with the best sec­ond-place over­all fin­ish of all Con­ca­caf Na­tions League B teams in the 2022/2023 com­pe­ti­tion, will re­place Nicaragua in the 2023/2024 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League A and will con­test Group A along­side Pana­ma, Guatemala, El Sal­vador, Mar­tinique, and Cu­ra­cao.

Suc­cess in League A of the 2023/2024 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League, which be­gins in Sep­tem­ber 2023, earns a team qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the 2024 Co­pa Amer­i­ca, which will be held in the USA.

An­tigua and Bar­bu­da now meet the ‘Gwa­da Boys’ to­day with the win­ner to face the win­ner of the Guyana/Grena­da clash for a spot in Group D along­side top-seed­ed Cana­da, Guatemala, and Cu­ba.

The pre­lim­i­nary round one fix­tures be­tween Mar­tinique and St Lu­cia and Cu­ra­cao and St Kitts and Nevis will al­so take place to­day in Fort Laud­erdale from 7 pm and 9 pm, re­spec­tive­ly.