In a phenomenon with which local football fans are probably familiar, the Soca Warriors team’s fortunes this year have been topsy-turvy from start to finish.
Meanwhile, off the field of play, the TT Football Association (TTFA) finally escaped the clutches of the Fifa-appointed normalisation committee when former Eastern Football Association president Kieron Edwards was elected TTFA president on April 13.
Edwards defeated former TT Premier Football League CEO Colin Wharfe, and immediately pointed to 2026 Fifa World Cup qualification as one of the desired milestones for the Soca Warriors under his watch.
“When it comes to our men’s team, we intend to give coach Angus Eve and the boys all the support to qualify for the next World Cup,” Edwards said, after his Team Progressive slate registered a 38-19 win at the TTFA elections.
It was a big vote of confidence for the coach, but that confidence seemed to evaporate quickly.
End of the road for Eve
With Eve at the helm, the year started with TT’s men’s football team having lofty aspirations of qualifying for the Copa America 2024 tournament, with anticipation also building ahead of the World Cup campaign.
As it turned out, TT’s Copa America dreams were dashed after a 2-0 playoff loss to Canada on March 23, and the World Cup campaign getting off to a rocky start with a 2-2 draw with Grenada at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo on June 5.
The Soca Warriors trailed 2-1 at the half, and it took a 74th-minute goal from forward Reon Moore to salvage a point for the hosts.
Despite the point, there was general displeasure among the home supporters.
Three days later, the Soca Warriors hammered Bahamas by a 7-1 margin, but the result wasn’t enough to save Eve’s job. He was relieved of his duties by the TTFA on July 31, with a media release saying the association would start to search for “a new head coach who can lead our national team to greater heights.”
It was a bold move for president Edwards and the new TTFA administration, as on January 4, Eve’s contract had been extended to December 31, 2025.
Longtime TT assistant coach Derek King was appointed head coach on an interim basis as the team built towards the 2024/25 Concacaf Nations League A campaign, but rumours swirled around for weeks about who the new Soca Warriors boss could be.
The ‘Y Factor’
After three months of speculation and an uncomfortable Nations League A campaign, which saw the Soca Warriors just avoid relegation to Nations League B, former Manchester United star and TT 2006 World Cup captain Dwight Yorke was named head coach on November 1.
On November 14, in an extravagant ceremony at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Balmain, Couva, the TTFA unleashed the “Y factor” – Yorke, with no ambiguity about the expectations placed on the former Premier League star: to secure World Cup qualification.
With the Soca Warriors already two games into their World Cup campaign when he was appointed, Yorke made it clear he didn’t want to disrupt what had already been established.
“The work begins now. My ambition is build on what has already been built. With the addition of my backroom staff, we could hopefully enhance what we’re about.
“I can assure that we will be giving 110 per cent to make sure we get the best out of these players and try to bring joy, celebration and excitement,” he said during his elaborate unveiling.
Yorke’s backroom staff include King and his former teammate Russell Latapy, himself a legend in the local game.
“I’m quite positive about these guys (the technical staff). I didn’t second-guess. The selling point is coming to (TT) and trying to take us to the World Cup. I didn’t think it was too difficult a sell,” Yorke said.
The TTFA, and the government by extension, pulled out all the stops to land Yorke. Minister of Sport and Community Development Shamfa Cudjoe-Lewis revealed that her ministry will distribute US$2 million over the next two years (2024-2026) to assist with the team’s World Cup campaign.
With no competitive Fifa windows available to Yorke until the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup preliminary playoffs versus Cuba in March, the TTFA organised a friendly with Saudi Arabia on December 17. The trip had a twofold purpose for the TTFA, as Edwards also signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Saudi Arabia Football Federation with the aim of furthering the development of the game in both countries.
The Soca Warriors lost the friendly 3-1, but Yorke took a lot of positives from his first official game in charge. No doubt he will have tougher and more meaningful tests ahead with the Concacaf Gold Cup playoffs and the resumption of the World Cup qualifying campaign in June, when his team will lock horns with St Kitts and Nevis and group favourites Costa Rica.
What type of team has Yorke inherited?
If 2023 was a rollercoaster year for TT football, 2024 followed a similar pattern.
A new TTFA president was appointed, a coach was sacked in the middle of a World Cup qualifying campaign, and finally, a local football icon was hired as the hero to guide the senior team to a second World Cup appearance.
TT played 12 games this year, recording four wins, four draws and four defeats.
After a pair of local friendly matches against Jamaica in early March, the Soca Warriors missed out on Copa America qualification despite putting up a valiant fight against Canada.
Two friendly victories followed versus Guyana in May, before the team’s first two matches of the World Cup campaign.
After the TTFA parted ways with Eve at the end of July, interim coach King had a rude awakening in the hot seat, as TT were thumped 4-0 away to Honduras in the opening game of the 2024/25 Nations League A campaign on September 6.
After a run to the quarterfinals of the 2023/24 edition of the Nations League, the Soca Warriors were looking relegation in the face after a subpar goalless draw with French Guiana at the Dwight Yorke Stadium in Bacolet, Tobago on September 10.
With two games left to save the campaign, King raised eyebrows when he recalled the then-retired Kevin Molino, playmaker Joevin Jones and Sheldon Bateau for home-and-away matches with Cuba.
Molino featured sparingly, but King’s move paid dividends, as both Jones and Bateau scored in a 2-2 draw away to Cuba on October 10. Mere days later, in Bacolet, Jones scored and put in a brilliant performance as TT preserved their spot in Nations League A for another cycle with a precious 3-1 win.
Youngsters Nathaniel James and Dantaye Gilbert both shone brightly in attack in the win over Cuba, and the game gave Soca Warriors fans a glimpse of what the future could look like under Yorke.
Critically, with no official windows between now and TT’s next assignment with Cuba, it will be intriguing to see how Yorke manages the players at his disposal to unleash the “Y factor” in the Concacaf region.
