With Trinidad and Tobago’s Copa America playoff against Canada fast approaching and their opponents for the 2026 World Cup qualifying campaign revealed, Head coach Angus Eve is cautiously optimistic about the way forward.

This, as he believes his senior Soca Warriors are in a much better place ahead of this year’s campaign compared to last year when they had a fairly successful run, which included an historic victory over United States in the Concacaf Nations League quarterfinals.

Should they secure an upset victory over Canada in the upcoming March 23 fixture, Trinidad and Tobago would qualify for the prestigious Copa America tournament to contest Group A alongside Argentina, Peru and Chile.

The Soca Warriors are also set to contest Group B in the second round of the Concacaf World Cup qualifiers alongside Costa Rica, St Kitts and Nevis, Grenada and Bahamas.

Eve, who views the ongoing T&T Premier Football League, as well as pre-season football for his foreign-based charges in North America as an additional boost, pointed out that they have already started plotting the way forward.

“We had a strategy meeting where we planned our way forward. We have been speaking individually with everybody in their individual roles. This is what the collective meeting (was about), to bring back in all the data and plan the way going forward,” Eve told TTFA in a recent interview.

The tactician credited T&T Premier Football League’s tier one and tier two competitions for improving his talent pool to some extent.

“It has been tremendous and refreshing for us because every (national training) camp that we would have gone in previously the locally based players weren’t playing (regularly), and we had to do a lot of work to bring (them) up to match fitness,” Eve reasoned.

“Now they are playing, the league is going well. I think it’s very competitive so we can see that the players are playing much sharper. I thought that this (second) season the boys would be playing a lot faster, and they are. So, it’s good for us and we want to bring them in,” he added.

That said, Eve welcomed the fact that surging young talents Tyrese Spicer of Toronto FC and Colorado Rapids’ Wayne Frederick II, are now among the potentials for a national call-up.

“We have some new boys who will get the opportunity to come in the camp and work with us in that environment. We have seen a lot of nice young players coming through the league.

"The players in Canada, the players in the US are already in pre-season with their clubs so they will get a lot of pre-season matches under their belt. It’s a lot more game time and also that we have the few players in Europe, they are still in action and playing,” Eve noted.

“(So) I think we’re in a better place going into this round of matches because soon after, we’ll have the World Cup campaign to start,” he ended.