PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) —Trinidad and Tobago’s skipper Kenwyne Jones expects his players to be fully motivated for their CONCACAF Gold Cup campaign, following a productive training camp here over the last week.

The Soca Warriors were scheduled to leave the island yesterday for Fort Lauderdale, where they will undergo a six-day training camp, as they put the finishing touches on their preparation for the July 7-26 tournament in the United States.

Jones, gearing up for his third Gold Cup campaign, said a tournament of this magnitude was enough to inspire T&T to be at their best.

“We have to be very motivated. It’s going to be my third Gold Cup and for quite a few players it will be their first Gold Cup. They have a chance to show what they have and be on a world stage where they can better themselves professionally,” said the 30-year-old, who plays for Cardiff City in England’s second tier.

“Apart from the World Cup and World Cup qualifiers, I don’t think there are any more tournaments that should need more motivation than this one.

“As a unit, especially after the last three results we had, I think we are trying to put the team work right first and then go forward into the tournament because we had a pretty decent tournament last time.”

T&T face a difficult campaign in Group C of the Gold Cup, which gets going on July 9, as they will do battle against Guatemala, Cuba and Mexico.

Their lead-up to the tournament was a bumpy one, suffering three losses in friendly internationals. They went down 0-1 to Panama in March, also lost 0-1 to Curacao last month before being thrashed 3-0 by Jordan two weeks ago.

Jones described the recent results as a “wake up call”, and said the players had responded well during the recent camp.

“We came together and worked hard. We had some tough days but it’s something that we needed. After the last two games, we needed that as a wake up call within ourselves,” he said.

“After the difficulties, we had to come together and dig deep as a unit, management staff and players, to try and get the best preparation possible.”