Garcia joins Joseph, Ettiene in India

Nathaniel be­comes the third play­er from the T&T to sign for Goku­lam Ker­ala fol­low­ing the foot­steps of An­dre Et­tiene and Mar­cus Joseph Jr, who both fea­tured in the 2019 Du­rand Cup ti­tle-win­ning squad with the lat­ter bag­ging the top goalscor­er award af­ter scor­ing 11 goals in five match­es.

Gar­cia made his de­but for T&T last year com­ing off the bench in a friend­ly against Mar­tinique and was al­so a part of the na­tion­al team squad which played two Con­ca­caf Na­tions League A match­es against Mar­tinique but re­mained as an un­used sub­sti­tute.

So far in his club ca­reer, he has played in the CON­CA­CAF Cham­pi­ons League against US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's LA Galaxy, Van­cou­ver White­caps FC, and Sport­ing Kansas City and won three suc­ces­sive T&T Pro League ti­tles with Cen­tral FC.

Con­tin­u­ing their pre-sea­son prepa­ra­tions af­ter win­ning the Du­rand Cup, Goku­lam Ker­ala will vis­it Ma­ha­rash­tra to play friend­ly against ISL side Mum­bai City FC on Fri­day. They will take on Ben­galu­ru FC next fol­lowed by Chen­naiyin FC and Jamshed­pur FC.

Look­ing ahead to the new sea­son, Joseph has set his eyes on the I-League.

"It was a good feel­ing to be the top scor­er of Du­rand Cup. If you don't score goals, you don't win match­es."

Joseph was the top goalscor­er in the 2018 T&T Pro League, where he net­ted 18 goals for W Con­nec­tion and helped them win the ti­tle and the 28-year-old hopes to repli­cate the same with Goku­lam Ker­ala in the I-League this sea­son.

He said, "Yes, I can be­come the top goalscor­er in I-League. I al­ways do my best to score goals and help my team. My goal is al­ways to score goals and be the best play­er that I can be."

Re­flect­ing on his dis­play for T&T in the 1-1 draw against Mar­tinique in CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League en­counter, Joseph said, "It is al­ways a great feel­ing to play for your coun­try. If you rep­re­sent your coun­try, it means you are one of the top play­ers (in your coun­try)."

Along­side Mar­cus, the oth­er T&T play­ers who fea­tured in the squad were Gar­cia (Goku­lam Ker­ala), Daneil Cyrus (Mo­hun Bagan), and Mar­vin Phillip (NE­RO­CA).

The quin­tet of Radan­fah Abu Bakr (Churchill Broth­ers), Robert Primus (Churchill Broth­ers), Taryk Samp­son (NE­RO­CA), Willis Plaza (Churchill Broth­ers), and An­dre Et­tiene (Goku­lam Ker­ala) are some oth­er play­ers from the Caribbean na­tion who will al­so ply their trade in this sea­son's I-League.

In terms of set­ting tar­gets for the pre-sea­son, Joseph said, "I don't have any tar­get on the num­ber of goals I wish to score in these pre-sea­son games.

"Once I get a chance, I will score. If I get one chance, I will score one. If I get two, I will score two. If I get three, I will score three. This is how foot­ball is. You just take your chances. These are just warm-up games. You want to see how fit you are and at what lev­el you are. All these teams are top teams. So, you have to give good per­for­mances against them," he signs off.