PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors captain Dwight Yorke remains upbeat about the Soca Warriors’ World Cup qualifying chances in spite of their damaging loss to Costa Rica Saturday night.

T&T arrived in Mexico City just after midnight Monday to face the struggling host country today, just four days after going down (2-3) to Costa Rica at Dwight Yorke Stadium Saturday night.

The result Saturday allowed Costa Rica to stay top of the standings while the Soca Warriors remain rooted to the bottom of the standings.

“It’s not over by any means. I know this was the game to have won and based on how the other games have gone then we would be right up there with the rest of them,” Yorke said.

With a mere two points from four games so far, winless T&T are 10 points behind leaders Costa Rica (12) and eight behind second-placed USA (10) approaching the halfway point in the series.

The top three teams in the six-team play-off will advance directly to the 2010 World Cup Finals in South Africa and T&T will take heart from the fact that they are within striking distance of third-positioned El Salvador (5), and other hopefuls Honduras (4) and Mexico (3).

The Soca Warriors showed a lot of fight and spirit in defeat against in-form Costa Rica and Yorke is using that as a platform to keep hope.

“There are a lot of positives to take from it and we must ensure that we maintain this and keep our heads up at all times,” Yorke said.

T&T got the start they wanted Saturday when Carlos Edwards gave them a 29th minute lead, smashing in a low right-footer from outside the box.

But Alvaro Saborio drew Costa Rica level in the 40th minute and Celso Borges hit second-half goals in the 52nd and 68th minutes to secure Costa Rica’s win after Collin Samuel had locked the game at 2-2 with a goal in the 63rd minute.

Edwards thought T&T let themselves down by not continuing from the bright start which led to his opening goal.

“I thought we had our best start in all of the matches,” Edwards said.

“We also started well in El Salvador when I opened the scoring .… This time though I thought we were better for longer periods which is a good indication of how well the preparations went and the state of the team at this time.

But we didn’t hold on to the lead and the Costa Ricans proved that they were good enough to punish us at crucial moments in the game,” Edwards told TTFF Media.

Edwards said it is important for the team to keep believing they can qualify.

“It is important that we maintain this spirit right now because even though we lost I think we are more disappointed because of how well we played and we were beaten by a good Costa Rican team.”

Edwards said the “spirit is still upbeat in the camp” and they are facing Mexico mid-week “in search of a good result”.