Soca Warriors prepare for Bermuda clash

The three Scottish-based pros are the last to join Leo Beenhakker’s live-in training camp before tomorrow’s warm- up international against Bermuda scheduled for the Hasely Crawford Stadium from 6.30 pm.

Arriving on the weekend and training on Monday morning with the rest of the team at the Larry Gomes Stadium was English-based defender Ian Cox as well as Real Salt Lake duo Leslie Fitzpatrick and Marlon Rojas. New England Revolution defender Avery John is unavailable for tomorrow’s game and did not make the trip home. Port Vale’s Chris Birchall was also scheduled to arrive home yesterday.

Andrews, who missed the two last qualifiers against Costa Rica and Guatemala, is still in celebratory mood after his club seized the Scottish Premier League title on Sunday but Sancho’s story is a bit different as his Dundee team were relegated and he learnt on Sunday that he has been released by the club.

Sancho also went through some physical pain in his team’s 1-1 draw with Livingston as he required treatment after clashing heads with a Livingston player which caused a tooth to pierce through his lip leading to immediate treatment from the team physiotherapist inside the opening twenty minutes of the match.

Meantime, Bermudan team coach Kyle Lightbourne said his team was ready to give TT a good run as they are also preparing for a game against Manchester City’s Academy side early next month as part of Shaun Goater’s Grassroots Festival.

TTFF special advisor Jack Warner tried other countries such as Cuba, Paraguay and Norway among others but conflicting schedules led to Bermuda being the agreed opponent in place of El Salvador whose team could not arrive because of Hurricane Adrian.

"This was a real surprise – I don’t know if I have seen anything like this happen in football before. But it is good for us and we are hoping to make the most of it," said Lightbourne.

"It will give us some good match practice ahead of the Man City game. We are not going to turn down the chance to play the games against a top-class side, even if it has been a bit of a rush to get a squad together. We certainly don’t want to get embarrassed down there," added Lightbourne.

Goater, Bermuda’s English-based professional is unable to make the trip but US-based pro Barry Nusum will be in the line up.