No Dwight Yorke for Cuba.
By: Nigel Simon (Guardian).[/size]
T&T “Soca Warriors” will be without the services of 2006 Germany World Cup Finals captain, Dwight Yorke for their 2010 Concacaf Semifinal Round World Cup Qualifying opener against Cuba in Havana on August 20.
This was confirmed by team manager, David Mohammad when asked about the availability of the 36-year-old former Manchester United and Aston Villa forward, yesterday.
Yorke, who signed a one-year contract extension with Sunderland in June sustained the injury in a collision with goalkeeper Nikola Milojevic in Sunderland’s 1-1 draw with Vitoria Setubal in Portugal and following X-rays, a fracture was detected around the eye.
Yorke, along with international team-mates Silvio Spann, Christopher Birchall, Avery John, Cyd Gray and Scott Sealy were recalled to the T&T squad by Colombian coach Francisco Maturana after a less than impressive start to their campaign to reach a second straight World Cup Finals.
Since then Gray, Birchall and John have all featured for T&T, the last of which came in a 2-0 friendly win over Haiti at the Marvin Lee Stadium, Macoya eight days ago.
Birchall and John have since rejoined their clubs in England and USA and were not included in an all-local ‘Soca Warriors’ squad which leaves tomorrow for two friendly matches ahead of the Cuba match.
T&T will come up against Haiti in Port-au-Prince on Sunday and will then journey to the USA for a final warm-up match versus El Salvador in Washington DC on Wednesday before heading to Havana.
In fact, coach Maturana has also used a number of World Cup veterans in Anthony Wolfe, Cornell Glen, Clayton Ince, Densill Theobald, Aurtis Whitley, Collin Samuel, Jason Scotland and Dennis Lawrence in friendly matches and its left to be seen what his final combination of locals and overseas players will be for the Cuba match.
However, for now, Maturana is playing his cards close to his chest with regards to the names of the overseas players who will be in the team for the Cuba clash and manager Mohammad said those names will be revealed on Monday.
However, one thing is for certain, the injured Kenwyne Jones who underwent a successful knee surgery on Monday and Yorke will not be among them.
While Jones’ absence is strictly due to his injury, Yorke’s unavailability is a combination of his manager’s reluctance on him returning to international duty and his injury.
After Yorke had stated his willingness to return to international competition for the “Soca Warriors” Keane publicly rubbished the idea and stated that Yorke would not be returnin to the T&T tema as he had retired.
And last week, it was also revealed by T&T Football Federation special advisor Jack Warner, that Yorke through his agent had indicated to the local federation that he was not sure of when exactly he would make himself available to the team.
In addition to Cuba on August 20, T&T will also meet Guatemala on September 6, and USA in Chicago on September 10.
T&T will also play Guatemala away on October 11, USA at home on October 15 and Cuba on November 19 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo to end round-robin play.
The top two teams from the group will join the top two teams from Group B (Canada, Jamaica, Honduras, Mexico) and Group C (Haiti, Costa Rica, Suriname, El Salvador) in the Final Round from where the top three team will qualify automatically for South Africa.
The fourth placed team in Concacaf will meet the fifth place team from CONMEBOL (South America) in a home-and-away play-off.
