Soca Warriors drawn with Jamaica, Nicaragua for Concacaf Nations League

Trinidad and Tobago’s men’s football team have been placed in group B of the 2024/25 Concacaf Nations League A cycle alongside Cuba, French Guiana, Honduras, Nicaragua and Caribbean rivals Jamaica.

The draw for the 2024/25 Nations League was held in Miami on Monday, and featured Concacaf general secretary Philippe Moggio and former TT international goalkeeper Jan-Michael Williams.

The six teams in group A are: Costa Rica, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Martinique and Suriname.

The Nations League A group stage will be contested in the Fifa match windows in September and October 2024, and the quarterfinals will be contested in November 2024 in a home-and-away format. The final will be held in March 2025, with the 15 Concacaf nations in League A aiming to dethrone defending champions USA. The top two teams in each of the Nations League A groups will square off against the four top-ranked League A teams, who will enter the competition at the quarterfinal stage. These teams are Canada, Mexico, Panama and the US.

The bottom two teams in either League A group will be relegated to League B.

Due to the peculiar “Swiss-style” format, each team will play four matches in the Nations League A group (two home and two away) and will not face every team in their group. The group matchups will be decided on Thursday.

In the 2023/24 Nations League cycle, TT advanced to the knockout stages for the first time after finishing second in a group that included Curacao, El Salvador, Guatemala, Martinique and eventual group winners Panama. The Soca Warriors won their first three games against Curacao (1-0), El Salvador (3-2) and Guatemala (3-2), before falling to a shock 5-3 loss to Curacao in their last group match, which stripped them of top spot in the standings.

In the Nations League quarterfinals last November, the Soca Warriors fought valiantly as they beat the US 2-1 in their second-leg tie, but succumbed to a 4-2 loss on aggregate. In the subsequent Copa America 2024 play-in against Canada, TT fell to a 2-0 defeat as their dreams of qualifying for the prestigious tournament were dashed.

The US went on to beat Jamaica in the semis and their rivals Mexico in the final to lift a third straight Nations League title.

The Reggae Boyz finished the tourney in third spot after edging Panama 1-0 in the third-place playoff.

For the 2022/23 edition of the Nations League, TT earned promotion to League A after emerging from a group that included a Nicaraguan team which was punished by Concacaf for using an ineligible player. Nicaragua initially topped the group with 14 points to TT’s 13 before Concacaf ruled to strip them of their 2023/24 Nations League A and 2023 Concacaf Gold Cup spots.

Depending on group matchups for the upcoming Nations League A cycle, coach Angus Eve’s TT team could have a tasty rematch on their hands.