Trinidad and Tobago Senior Men’s Team will face Ecuador in an international friendly in Guayaquil, Ecuador on July 26th. The affair was confirmed by the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association on Tuesday night and will serve as part of the team’s build up to the September 1st World Cup qualifying match at home to Honduras.
Ecuador is currently ranked 31st on the FIFA ranking and lie in sixth position on the South American World Cup qualifying table, two points behind Argentina which they defeated 2-0 in 2018 World Cup qualifying action in Buenos Aires in October, 2015. Their next qualifying match is away to Brazil on August 31st. Ecuador has appeared in three FIFA World Cups.
T&T will host Honduras on September 1st before traveling to Panama City to take on Panama four days later.
Head Coach Dennis Lawrence indicated that the outing on July 26th will give him a chance to assess the available players.
“The game versus Ecuador is another step in our preparation for the upcoming World Cup qualifying match against Honduras” Lawrence told TTFA Media.
“The game is against a good South American opposition and I expect it to be good for us. It will give us an opportunity to assess those players who are selected and provides us valuable game time in a period when some of our other Concacaf opponents are also involved in international matches,” he added.
T&T have not played Ecuador at the senior international level but drew 1-1 with them at the Under 23 level when both countries met at the Pan American Games in Guadalajara in 2011. Current T&T members Kevin Molino, Sheldon Bateau, Joevin Jones and Mekeil Williams appeared in that encounter.
At the moment, the TTFA is in negotiations with another Spanish-speaking country for the staging of an additional international warm-up to be played in Trinidad in August.