A 21-man Trinidad and Tobago senior team is scheduled to arrive in Amman, Jordan at midnight (5pm TT time) after spending the night in London on Friday.
Skipper Kenwyne Jones and the rest of the team checked into the Renaissance Hotel, Heathrow following their Caribbean Airlines travel from Port of Spain on Thursday night.
There was one addition to the squad with Denmark-based defender Radanfah Abu Bakr coming in. He was included in the team last week by Hart to complete the 22-man squad. However while in London Hart learnt that English-born defender Gavin Hoyte would not be traveling with the team to Amman after requesting to be excused. Hoyte signed with English League two side Barnet last week and has been asked by his new club to withdraw from the T&T squad for Tuesday’s international friendly and stay back in England.
Team manager William Wallace also confirmed on Friday that four players have been added to the T&T’s 35-man Gold Cup roster after not being initially listed by the Confederation two days ago. The four players added include Kadeem Corbin, Columbus Crew midfielder Kevan George, Elijah Belgrave and goalkeeper Cleon John.
Hart had already listed South Korea-based defender Carlyle Mitchell to the roster but he found on Saturday that the former Vancouver Whitecaps player is unlikely to recover from an ankle injury in time for the Gold Cup and is likely to miss the tournament. Mitchell now joins Orlando City midfielder Kevin Molino, Hughtun Hector and defender Robert Primus as players ruled out of the Gold Cup through injury.
“That’s the situation as it is at the moment. We’ve been faced with some challenges but the important thing is to focus on what we have going for us at the moment and what is ahead which is a match against Jordan on Tuesday and hopefully a preparation camp next week which will lead us into our Gold Cup campaign,” Hart stated.
“The game against Jordan is an opportunity to have the players together in a game situation which has not been a regular occurrence for us this year. Having the squad together is always important and we’ll look to address certain things as it pertains to our preparations for the Gold Cup,” he added.
The team will be based at the Grand Hyatt in Amman and will have its first training session in the Kingdom on Sunday evening.
Last Friday, Jordan secured a 3-1 victory over Tajkistan in Asian 2018 World Cup qualifying action. A hat-trick by Hassan Abdel Fattah gave the visiting Jordan a much deserved win at the Respublikanskiy Stadion.