Both the Trinidad and Tobago and Honduras Senior Men Teams assembled in Port of Spain on Monday evening ahead of Thursday’s CONCACAF Nations League qualifier at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, scheduled for a 7:00pm kick off.
T&T head coach Dennis Lawrence conducted his first training session at the match venue on Monday evening with the majority of his players involved while another five were scheduled to join the camp later in the day or early Tuesday.
The Honduras contingent started arriving on Sunday evening with the rest of the squad coming on on Monday night.
Both head coaches will address the media on Wednesday at the Hasely Crawford Stadium before their official pre-game training sessions.
Canadian-based forward Ryan Telfer was among those on the training pitch on Monday alongside fellow Canadian-based pro Akeem Garcia who has earned his first senior team call up under Lawrence. Both players were anticipating Thursday’s affair in which T&T will be searching maximum points.
“Everyone’s been coming into camp and things are looking good so far. Come Thursday we’ll be ready to go. We know how important this game is and we also know that we dropped some points against Martinique. We had three points in the bag and somehow it turned into one. We are facd now with the task of beating Honduras and the mentality is do or die because we need to get three points,” Telfer told TTFA Media.
The mindset is the killer instinct from what I’ve seen with this guys. It’s a mindset of coming into practice everyday and do what is necessary and go into the game, get our hands dirty and do whatever is necessary to get the job done.”
Garcia meantime has been enjoying a solid season with Halifax Wanderers in the Canadian Premier League and he appears focused on pitching in to try and lead the Red,White and Black to a win.
“I just want to try and take it to the next level. I’ve got the opportunity to be with the national team. I still have to fight and make it in the final squad but i’ll be working hard and hoping for the best. Once called upon I will try my best to get the goals.
We know Honduras is a tough team but we have to be ready for the game. My form is good at the moment with three goals in the last five games so I am really eager to try and take this form into the national team. I am familiar with some of the guys in the team which will make the transition hopefully a bit easier.
“It’s just like in Halifax where the Trini connection has made it a bit easier for me to feel comfortable and to play my game, hopefully we can have that same chemistry and togetherness with the national team and go onto get good results in the upcoming games,” Garcia added.
SOURCE: ttfootball.org