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Trinidad and Tobago's men's football team coach Dwight Yorke has given his players full support to bounce back from their 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup campaign after they agonisingly exited at the group stage of the tournament on June 22.
Needing a victory against Saudi Arabia to advance to the quarterfinals for the first time since 2015, TT drew 1-1 with the guest team at the Allegiant Stadium, Nevada, Las Vegas and finished third in Group D with two points. The Saudis finished the group second on four points behind group-winners US (nine points). With almost the last kick of the game, defender Justin Garcia had the chance to be the hero when he was played through on goal by substitute Nathaniel James in the sixth minute of stoppage-time. However, the former stabbed his left-footed shot off the bar as TT's luck in Vegas cruelly ran out.
Yorke admitted that the gap between TT and the US was "much bigger than I thought" after the Soca Warriors' humbling 5-0 loss in their opening match of the tourney on June 15. However, he commended the fight and grit shown by his team in the subsequent 1-1 draws with Haiti and Saudi Arabia and believes many positives can be taken into the final round of qualification for the Fifa 2026 World Cup, which commences in September.
"When you play 90-plus (minutes), there's always going to be moments of the game that you're going to be backed up against the wall and you've got to see that danger out. But when the moment is switched around in our favour, we have to capitalise on it," Yorke said, after the Saudi game.
"There's no question in my mind. Coming off the experience in this Gold Cup, that when it comes to the World Cup campaign in September...this experience of being here will be valuable for us as a group and understanding what it takes to be at the top."
It will be an all-Caribbean affair in the Soca Warriors' group for the final World Cup qualifying round, as they will encounter Bermuda, Curacao and Jamaica. The group winner will qualify automatically for the World Cup.
Yorke, who started his tenure as the TT coach last November, maintains it's an ongoing learning stage for he and his team. However, he reckons they're on the right track.
"We knew we were one of the underdogs alongside Haiti. We were under no delusion that this was going to be a hard campaign for us to get out of. Nevertheless, at the end of the day, the experience during the Gold Cup was invalid (sic) for my players who have never been in this position before," he said.
"Those three matches we played, despite the defeat against America and the draws with Haiti and Saudi, I think the experience for some of these players, I won't say the experience of a lifetime. But in terms of improvement and going forward in their career...it shows we fought all the way and we got off to arguably the best possible start we could (in this game)."
TT got a dream start against the Saudis, with Brooklyn-born winger Dante Sealy unleashing a beauty of a curler into the top corner in only the tenth minute. It was the 22-year-old Sealy's third goal in his TT career which started with a debut brace against St Kitts and Nevis in a World Cup qualifier on June 6.
TT took a 1-0 lead to the half, but a pair of halftime changes from coach Herve Renard seemed to inspire a Saudi Arabia team who came out with renewed vigour and ambition in the second period. On the hour-mark, the Saudis grabbed a deserved equaliser when striker Feras Albrikan tapped in from close range after captain Saleh Al-Shehri rocked the bar with a powerful shot at the end of a slick move.
In the 72nd minute, the Soca Warriors just about stayed in the encounter when Garcia made a heroic block off the line to deny an effort from Abdulrahman Alobud who had hit the bar just seconds before in a frenetic sequence.
TT then suffered a blow in the 79th minute when midfielder Ajani Fortune had to be stretchered off with a suspected foot fracture after an innocuous-looking challenge from Ziyad Al-Johani. Fortune was on the field for all of 13 minutes.

Warriors' fighting spirit
With Saudi Arabia desperately trying to cement a result to progress to the last eight, Garcia was inches away from providing the killer blow for the Soca Warriors at the opposite end and he and his teammates were left crestfallen.
"I like what I saw from my players when the odds were against us. And to hold out and play in the manner we did and have the opportunity to possibly win the game and qualify at the very death would have been an unbelievable achievement for us, but it wasn't meant to be," Yorke said.
Yorke's tenure, which started with a 3-1 friendly loss away to the Saudis last December, now reflects three victories for the Soca Warriors versus Cuba (twice) and St Kitts and Nevis, to go along with three draws and six defeats.
Yorke is not bothered by the run of results, though.
"I like the fighting spirit and never-say-die attitude. And that's what will be required for us to take going forward if we have any chance of qualifying for the World Cup...the reality is we showed we could compete at this level. We just need to have a little more self-belief and a little more confidence in the way we play.
"I'm quietly confident that the players have benefited enormously, although the results may not suggest that. But the learning process in these players to develop to where they should be will then give them an indication. They will have a three-month stint now where they can reflect and understand how hard they have to work to achieve the goal of trying to get to the World Cup."

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