Hart starts preparation for Costa Rica

Hart will conduct a light session in the morning period and will step up the pace in the evening from 6pm.

The TT coach, however, will not have his full complement of players with US-based duo Aubrey David and Joevin Jones scheduled to arrive in Port of Spain later today while Frenchbased midfielder John Bostock is expected tomorrow as his club RC Lens will face Ajaccio in a league fixture this evening.

“We are aware of the situations with a couple of the players.

It is a situation which we cannot avoid but the majority of the squad will be here and we will get things rolling on Monday.

“As always, it will be an important period for us with all energies being focused on being ready for Friday’s match,” Hart told TT FA Media.

US-based midfielder Kevan George says he is fully focused on the task at hand and is eyeing three point to get the Road to Russia campaign going.

George is on a high, after being named “Most Valuable Player ” last week by his club Jacksonville Armada FC in the North American Soccer League.

“At this point I am very hungry and determined to for these two World Cup Qualifying games.

“I’m in the zone now, focused and locked in for whatever role I have to play to get us maximum points from our opening games in the hex,” George told TT FA Media.

“From the moment I get the call, in the back of my mind I start envisioning camp, mainly the type of training sessions and opponents we will face.

Then I write down what I pray to accomplish for the upcoming camp.

“Every camp has a different mission. I’m typically disciplined in the way I eat but I eat even more greens and less meat to give me as much energy as possible.” On the threat of Costa Rica, George already has some knowledge of their rivals.

“Costa Rica has several big threats that we respect such as Joel Campbell and Bryan Ruiz, just to name a couple. They have talented individuals and are very smart at finding spaces,” George said.

He urged his teammates to not be sluggish at the opening whistle as it is imperative they begin this final stage with a positive result.

“The start is the most important part for us because we want to put ourselves in a position to qualify early.

“In the Gold Cup we started off our first game of the tournament extremely fast and we rode that wave to the quarter- finals unfortunately bowing out on penalty kicks.

“Even though there are better opponents in these World Cup qualifiers, I think if we can emulate that start we had in the last Gold Cup we can make the dream a reality,” he added.

He noted, though, that they need to take it one game at a time despite having their sights on Russia 2018.

“It is key that we don’t get ahead of ourselves and start counting games and points. We need to expand all of our energies on Costa Rica and worry about Honduras when that time comes.

“We have a pretty balanced squad so whoever is on the field for both games, we are confident that they can do the job so no one will have to conserve energy for the next game.