T&T Under 20's vs Venezuela - PATRIOT Match Observations.
Well I arrived at the Larry Gomes Stadium around 4:07pm, Just missing the kick-off. There was NO admission but yet still ONLY about 30 people were there, about TEN of them Venezuelans. Note to TTFF - PLEASE try and UNIFY the football calender so that football fans would NOT have to choose between Intercol semi's at the HCS and the Under-20 game at the LGS!!!
Well the first thing I noticed was that T&T were dominating the game and 8-9 of our team were in Venezuela's 1/2 of the field. The pressure continued for the next 5-10 mins and from a foul comitted just outside the Venezuelan penalty box, a free kick was 1/2 cleared by the Venezuelan defence, and fell to T&T's#3, left-sided defender, Marvin James, who rifled a left-footed shot past the dive of the Venezuelan keeper. Goal! T&T led 1-0 Now for the rest of the 1/2, the pattern of play continued with T&T domonating POSSESSION, but rarely creating much clear-cut chances. The Venezuelans, to me, seemed to be taking forever to settle and rarely threatened Adrian Foncette in goal for T&T. The ref turned a blind eye to some VERY robust challenges from BOTH teams, and this would have repercussions later. The 1/2 ended with T&T holding onto the 1-0 lead.
The second half had T&T taking the kick-off, and the crowd had now doubled to about 60. One man said there was a terrible accident on the highway and traffic for so! No sooner had a long, searching ball down our left been made, then the Venezuelans had it back and launched a quick counter attack with some smart 1-2's. Their final touch was horribe though and together with some sturdy defending by T&T and some brilliant saves by Foncette the scoreline remained unchanged...but the pressure eventually paid off! From a free kick situation, there was a mad scramble in the area and a Venezuelan player was able to knock the ball past Foncette. Score now tied at 1-1! Well from here on in, "all hell brokeloose". It was fists flying, man foot flying past face, and more blade pass than Gillette, Schick, personna and Bic put together!!! Yellow card start sharing like peas and eventually T&T right-back, Corneal Thomas was ejected in around the 75th minute for a second yellow when he retaliated with a little TOO obvious elbow. Brian Williams then made some subs, bringing on Dion Peters for Carlyle Mitchell in mid-field, Elton John replaced Guerra and Cadette came on for Aaron Downing. Fonette proved the busier of the 2 keepers in this half and it is HE who kept the scorline at 1-1!
All in all a decent performance by the team, but they will need to step it up next week if we are to beat Jamaica! The players are WAAAY too gun-shy! man looking to pass off the ball just outside the box instead of taking a crack! The forwards tracked back and our midfield tackled well, supporting the defence, which looked fairly well organized EXCEPT when defending free-kicks, as our marking was VERY suspect! But from open play the Venezuelans rarely broke through. From what I saw this afternoon, this Under-20 team will create FEW scoring chances and will be well-advised to play a TIGHT, defensive game in Kingston and play on the break, as we have some speedy players who can take on defences...but they MUST shoot MORE often!!!
Thanks to Shaun Fuentes for the team sheet:-
T&T starting eleven:-
Adrian Foncette #1
Marvin James #3
Corneal Thomas #4
Khaleem Hyland #7
Keon Daniel #8
Matthew Bartholomew #10
Aaron Downing #11
Atulla Guerra #12
Larry Bacchus #13
Carlyle Mitchell #20
Silas Spann #6
Lester Peltier was in the Jabloteh team in action today and so was not available.
I can't make it to tomorrow's game but wish the team the best of luck and hope someone else can post something for me to read when I get back from my own lil sweat in UWI.
As usual, feel free to ask me any questions on anything I may have missed out.
PATRIOT
