Warriors go down 3-0 to Panama
By Shaun Fuentes (TTFF)
Trinidad and Tobago’s senior men’s team suffered another defeat at likely Concacaf World Cup opponents, this time going down 3-0 to Panama at the Rommel Fernandez Stadium on Tuesday night.
Russell Latapy’s men took a while to settle down and were punished in the 13th minute when Edwin Aguilar turned two defenders before clinically hitting past goalkeeper Jan Michael Williams to put the home team 1-0 ahead to the delight of a noisy home crowd of around 12,000.
Moments earlier, in the 9th minute, T&T had to thank Williams for pulling off a save to deny a penalty after he had pulled down Aguilar.
The quick start by the Panamanians had T&T on the backfoot from early on as skipper Trent Noel and Densill Theobald trying their best to settle things in the middle for the visitors. Devon Jorsling had a first half effort go over bar and another saved low down by the goalkeeper. Panama enjoyed a 56 percent advantage in possession to T&T’s 44 percent in the first half.
T&T had a much better start to the second half as Latapy seemed to have gotten his directives through to the players during the break.
The “Soca Warriors” began with more purpose, maintaining god possession going forward and controlled the pace for the opening 15 minutes of the second half. Kareem Young also made his international debut, coming on for Theobald in the 77th.
On 52 minute, Theobald played a good diagonal ball on the right to Hayden Tinto and his deep cross found Jorsling but the Defence Force marksman could only see his low shot pushed out for a corner on the near post.
Substitute Jovin Jones also tried his luck with a left footer which was well saved and on 57 minutes Theobald was again involved in the build up as Jones floated in a neat left side cross for Jason Marcano but his header drifted inches wide of the upright.
Substitute Tejada put Panama 2-0 ahead against the run of play, punishing T&T for some poor defensive work as three attempted clearances failed allowing Tejada to rifle past substitute goalkeeper Marvin Phillip from the six yard box.
Defender Kern Cupid was then adjudged to have committed a foul inside the penalty box allowing Gabriel Gomez to cheekily chip past Phillip on 87 minutes for a 3-0 lead.
. Latapy put on Ataulla Guerra and striker Kerry Baptiste later on but there was little that could be done to salvage a result for T&T by then.
Noel had a late effort for T&T, with a left footer which was pushed out on the near right post by goalkeeper Jose Calderon.
Latapy was notably disappointed with the result but added that he there were some positives with the way his team controlled the flow of the match in the second half before conceding its second goal.
Theobald added : “We came here looking to get a good result and it didn’t happen. I think we started slow but we kept in there after conceding early. We had a much better game in the second half and for moments I thought we were going to get that equalizer but then they got their second goal and we didn’t come back from there. Overall, the result was very disappointing but it’s a good opportunity for us to have the kind of matches here before the upcoming Digicel Caribbean Cup and the Gold Cup next year. We will face these same kind of opponents in the 2014 World Cup qualifiers also,” Theobald added.
Trinidad & Tobago: 21.Jan-Michael Williams (1.Marvin Phillip 46’); 5.Kern Cupid, 19.Daneil Cyrus, 6.Keston Williams, 3.Aklie Edwards (14.Jovin Jones 46th); 10.Hayden Tinto, 18.Densil Theobald (Kareem Young 77’), 11.Kevon Carter (2.Ataullah Guerra 56’); 13.Jason Marcano (4.Kerry Baptiste 70’), 8.Trent Noel,9.Devon Jorsling.