T&T se­nior men's foot­ball team coach Dwight Yorke has named the un­capped trio of de­fend­ers Ko­bi Hen­ry, Deron Payne and Jer­ron Jack­ie in a 35-man pro­vi­sion­al squad for this coun­try's Group B Con­ca­caf Fi­nal Round 2026 World Cup Qual­i­fi­er against Cu­ra­cao at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, on Fri­day from 8 pm.

The na­tion­al men’s team will then jour­ney to Ja­maica on Sep­tem­ber 9 for a clash with the Ja­maica “Reg­gae Boyz” at the Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Kingston from 8 pm (7 pm lo­cal time).

The 21-year-old Hen­ry was born in the Unit­ed States, to T&T par­ents and rep­re­sent­ed the USA at Un­der-17, U-19 and U-20 lev­els, mak­ing sev­en youth ap­pear­ances. He was called up to the USA se­nior camp in De­cem­ber 2021 but did not ap­pear in the game against Bosnia and Herze­gov­ina.

In Jan­u­ary, he was snapped up by US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's (MLS) Re­al Salt Lake from French side Reims via loan for the 2025 MLS sea­son. He signed his first pro­fes­sion­al con­tract at age 16, with Or­ange Coun­ty SC in June 2020, fol­low­ing youth stints with both the Or­lan­do City and In­ter Mi­a­mi youth acad­e­mies.

Hen­ry comes from an ath­let­ic fam­i­ly, with his fa­ther be­ing a for­mer se­mi-pro­fes­sion­al foot­ball play­er, while his moth­er did track and field. His grand­fa­ther, Ken Hen­ry, was a strength and con­di­tion­ing coach for the na­tion­al team.

Payne of FC Volen­dam cam­paigns in the Dutch Ere­di­visie and plays as a right-back. The 22-year-old, who is in the fi­nal year of a three-year con­tract with Volen­dam, made his Ere­di­visie de­but for Volen­dam on No­vem­ber 6, 2022, in a game against Feyeno­ord and was born in the Nether­lands to a Trinida­di­an fa­ther and Dutch moth­er. He is the younger broth­er of the de­fend­er De­se­vio Payne, 29, who plays for Konin­klijke FC in the Dutch Tweede Di­visie, the high­est am­a­teur league in Hol­land.

Jack­ie, 24, is a for­mer Pre­sen­ta­tion Col­lege of San Fer­nan­do cen­tre-back who scored a 48th-minute penal­ty in his Por­tu­gal club's CD Gou­veia 2-1 loss to Re­sende in the Por­tuguese foot­ball league, Campe­ona­to de Por­tu­gal.

Al­so in­clud­ed in the pro­vi­sion­al squad se­lect­ed by for­mer Man­ches­ter Unit­ed and As­ton Vil­la strik­er, Yorke, are Eng­land-based for­ward Justin Obik­wu of Eng­land Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion's Coven­try City and Cana­da-born goal­keep­er Gre­go­ry Ran­jits­ingh of New York City FC in the MLS, who have fea­tured for the na­tion­al team on two and one oc­ca­sion, re­spec­tive­ly, in friend­ly en­coun­ters, Colum­bus Crew II's Kaile Au­vray, and De­fence Force Elite's Cur­tis Gon­za­les, 36, who last rep­re­sent­ed the na­tion­al team in 2021 with his last of 31 ap­pear­ance at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup.

A no­table omis­sion from Yorke's squad is ver­sa­tile left-foot­ed mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones, 34, who played his 102nd in­ter­na­tion­al for the men's se­nior team in the 1-1 draw with Sau­di Ara­bia at the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in June.

Jones be­came on­ly the fifth T&T play­er to reach 100 caps in se­nior team ap­pear­ances, join­ing record-hold­er and for­mer coach An­gus Eve (118 caps), record goal-scor­er Stern John (115 caps), de­fend­er Mar­vin An­drews (104 caps) and goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip (100 caps).

Among the reg­u­lar faces in the squad an­nounced are goal­keep­ers Mar­vin Phillip, Jabari St Hillaire), and Den­zil Smith; de­fend­er Dar­nell Hospedales, Rio Car­dines, Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, An­dre Ray­mond, Alvin Jones, Justin Gar­cia, Isa­iah Gar­cia, Ja­mal Jack and Tris­ton Hodge; mid­field­ers Stef­fen Yeates, Daniel Phillips, Nathaniel James, Kevin Moli­no, Tyrese Spicer, Wayne Fred­er­ick II, An­dre Ram­per­sad, Re­al Gill, Noah Pow­der and Kai­him Thomas, as well as for­wards Levi Gar­cia, Ryan Telfer, Dante Sealy, Isa­iah Lee and Isa­iah Lea­cock.

The T&T squad is ex­pect­ed to be­gin as­sem­bling to­mor­row, with all the play­ers ex­pect­ed in camp by Mon­day.

For Fri­day's match, Jones will be out through sus­pen­sion while At­lanta Unit­ed's Ajani For­tune is still re­cov­er­ing from the in­jury he sus­tained against Sau­di Ara­bia at the Gold Cup.

Fol­low­ing the match­es in Sep­tem­ber, T&T will then play away to Bermu­da on Oc­to­ber 10 at the Bermu­da Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre, De­von­shire, from 7 pm, and four days lat­er at Cu­ra­cao at the Sta­dion Ergilio Ha­to, Willem­stad, al­so from 7 pm be­fore re­turn­ing home for their fi­nal two match­es against Ja­maica at Mu­cu­rapo on No­vem­ber 13, from 8 pm and No­vem­ber 18 ver­sus Bermu­da at 9 pm.

At the con­clu­sion of the Fi­nal Round in No­vem­ber, the win­ner of each group will qual­i­fy di­rect­ly for the FI­FA World Cup 2026, join­ing co-hosts Cana­da, Mex­i­co, and the USA.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the two best sec­ond-place fin­ish­ers will ad­vance to the FI­FA In­ter­con­ti­nen­tal Play­off, sched­uled for March 2026, for a chance to se­cure a World Cup spot. For the first time in his­to­ry, the Con­ca­caf re­gion could be rep­re­sent­ed by as many as eight teams in a men’s FI­FA World Cup.

T&T, qual­i­fiers to the 2006 FI­FA Ger­many World Cup, se­cured its spot in the fi­nal round of qual­i­fiers af­ter end­ing in the sec­ond spot in its four team Group B qual­i­fiers as the sec­ond-placed fin­ish­ers in the five-team pool with sev­en points from four match­es, the same as Grena­da but ahead on goal dif­fer­ence, of plus-nine to plus-four, while Cos­ta Ri­ca end­ed in the top spot with a max­i­mum of 12 points.

All-fe­male Mex­i­can team to of­fi­ci­ate T&T vs Cu­ra­cao qual­i­fi­er

Mex­i­can ref­er­ee Ka­tia Gar­cia will lead an all women’s team of match of­fi­cials ap­point­ed for the up­com­ing FI­FA World Cup 2026 Qual­i­fi­er be­tween T&T and Cu­raçao on Fri­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, from 8 pm, un­der­scor­ing FI­FA’s com­mit­ment to ad­vanc­ing women in ref­er­ee­ing on the glob­al stage.

In ad­di­tion to Gar­cia, the oth­er of­fi­cials ap­point­ed to the match are al­so Mex­i­can, in­clu­sive of As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee I San­dra Ramirez, As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee II, Karen Di­az, and Fourth Of­fi­cial, Daniel Quin­tero.

This match will al­so fea­ture the im­ple­men­ta­tion of Video As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee (VAR) tech­nol­o­gy, which will be in use for all fix­tures in the fi­nal round of FI­FA World Cup 2026 qual­i­fy­ing.

T&T pro­vi­sion­al World Cup qual­i­fiers squad

Goal­keep­ers: Mar­vin Phillip (Cen­tral FC), Jabari St Hillaire (De­fence Force), Gre­goy Ran­jits­ingh (New York City/USA), Jabari Brice (Cen­tral FC), Den­zil Smith (AV Al­ta FC/USA).

De­fend­ers: Dar­nell Hospedales, Rio Car­dines (Crys­tal Palace/Eng­land), Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham (Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed/Ja­maica), An­dre Ray­mond Ilves/Fin­land), Alvin Jones (Cen­tral FC), Justin Gar­cia (Song Lam Nghe An/Viet­nam), Isa­iah Gar­cia (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Deron Payne (FC Volen­dam/Hol­land), Ja­mal Jack (Cen­tral FC), Tris­ton Hodge (North Car­oli­na FC/USA), Jer­ren Jack­ie (CD Gou­veia/Por­tu­gal).

Mid­field­ers: Stef­fen Yeates (York Unit­ed FC/Cana­da), Daniel Phillips (Steve­nage FC/Eng­land), Nathaniel James (Port­land Hearts of Pine/USA), Kevin Moli­no (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Tyrese Spicer (Or­lan­do City FC/USA), Wayne Fred­er­ick II (Col­orado Rapids/USA), An­dre Ram­per­sad (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Re­al Gill (Huntsville City FC/USA), Noah Pow­der (Westch­ester FC/USA). Kaile Au­vray (Colum­bus Crew II/USA), Kai­him Thomas (T&T De­fence Force Elite), Cur­tis Gon­za­les (T&T De­fence Force Elite).

For­wards: Levi Gar­cia (Spar­tak Moscow/Rus­sia), Ryan Telfer (HFX Wan­der­ers/Cana­da), Dante Sealy (CF Mon­tre­al/Cana­da), Justin Obik­wu (Coven­try City/Eng­land), Isa­iah Lee (Cen­tral FC), Isa­iah Lea­cock (T&T de­fence Force Elite).