In the face of con­cerns about the coun­try’s tal­ent pool in foot­ball, na­tion­al coach Dwight Yorke has ex­pressed con­fi­dence that his play­ers can take us to the World Cup in 2026, which will be staged in the Con­ca­caf re­gion by the Unit­ed States, Mex­i­co and Cana­da.

His com­ment came af­ter a sev­en-day live-in camp at the Home of Foot­ball in Bal­main, Cou­va, which end­ed in a 1-0 win over T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) cam­paign­er De­fence Force a week ago at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma.

The team, ex­pect­ed­ly, was not at its best as Yorke ex­plained in a video used to wrap up the camp, say­ing the Army Coast-Guard Com­bi­na­tion team dom­i­nat­ed the pro­ceed­ing for the most part in both halves, how­ev­er, he urged play­ers to live by what they were taught at the camp when they go back to their re­spec­tive clubs etc.

Tier 1 of the TTPFL kicks off next Fri­day (De­cem­ber 6) with a dou­ble­head­er at the Phase II Recre­ation Ground in La Hor­quet­ta, fea­tur­ing a bat­tle of the ser­vice teams—De­fence Force and Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC at 5 pm, with Cale­do­nia AIA and Ter­minex La Hor­quet­ta Rangers squar­ing off in the lat­er game at 7 pm.

Yorke urged his charges not to go back to their clubs and just fit in, but rather show that they are na­tion­al play­ers.

“I talked about build­ing on what An­gus Eve start­ed and Derek King as well. As a staff, we ex­pect dis­ci­pline, ded­i­ca­tion, and at­ti­tude, all of which I con­sid­er to be an im­age of me in many re­spects. ‘You are the na­tion­al team and you are the best play­ers in the coun­try’, and that comes with a cer­tain amount of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty.

“There is no doubt in my mind that you have the abil­i­ty and the tal­ent to take us to where we want to go, but it’s our job now to put those pieces to­geth­er. What I will say is that in the fu­ture things will change in some as­pects. When we se­lect the play­ers in the fu­ture you must en­sure that you are very much part of that,” Yorke said.

“What I will al­so say is that though you may not be part of the team go­ing for­ward, the door is not shot ei­ther. When you leave here and you go back to rep­re­sent your clubs, make sure that they know that you’re a na­tion­al play­er, and the on­ly way you do that is by set­ting stan­dards, how you train and how you car­ry about your­self. Be­ing on time, be­ing an ex­am­ple for all, be­ing that dif­fer­ence-mak­er.”

Yorke, sur­round­ed by his staff mem­bers—as­sis­tant coach­es Derek King, Rus­sell Lat­apy and Eng­land’s Neil Wood, with Aus­tralia’s An­tho­ny Crea as the strength and con­di­tion­ing coach, told the play­ers that they shouldn’t go back and just fit in.

Say­ing the ex­pe­ri­ence gar­nered over the sev­en days should be a form of valu­able ex­pe­ri­ence for them, he urged his charges not to take that ex­pe­ri­ence for grant­ed.

“We have eyes on the ground, we would know where you are. I’ve al­ways said if you’re good we will find you so don’t give us any ex­cuse to not be in this team.”

Yorke’s team could face his first in­ter­na­tion­al test next month with match­es against Qatar and Sau­di Ara­bia be­ing arranged. The So­ca War­riors will face Cu­ba in two match­es in the pre­lim­i­nar­ies of the Con­ca­caf Gold Cup in March next year be­fore they face St Kitts & Nevis in the World Cup Qual­i­fiers here at home in June.