T&T stay alive....U20s to meet Jamaica in playoff.
By: Shaun Fuentes (TTFF).
Trinidad and Tobago’s under 20 footballers will have to go through the back door and may still need to pick an extra lock to progress in their qualifying bid for the 2007 FIFA World Youth Championship. All this was determined as the Brian Williams coached team showed some guts in a 3-0 victory over St Vincent and the Grenadines at the Ato Boldon Stadium on Sunday to secure second spot in the group and a place in the playoff with Jamaica in two weeks time.
St Kitts/Nevis proved the odds wrong as they outlasted Dominican Republic 2-1 in the first game of the double header on a muddy pitch. The result meant they moved to six points and that T&T would have had to win by three clear goals to edge Dominican Republic for the second spot.
A 27th minute header goal by Radanfah Abu Bakr and a double by Matthew Bartholomew in the 70th and 81st minute paced T&T to the much needed victory in front a few hundred fans who turned up in desperate hope of something good from their boys.
A couple days earlier, the Spanish-speaking players were cheering on the Kittitians from the stands and on Sunday they were quiet and left disappointed with the eventual outcome.
T&T started with more purpose than they did in the two previous encounters as it appeared they finally realised that they weren’t that good as they may have been made to feel. Defenders Marvin James and Brendon Boucaud were left out of the start team this time while Corneal Thomas returned from injury and Stefan De Las got his first start.
The Vincentians actually had the first attempt on goal on 15 minutes when Cornelius Stewart tried from long range without any direction and a couple minutes later T&T’s Javed Mohammed had no control over his skied effort from the top left of the box under no pressure.
The chances were coming for T&T but the goals were what they needed. First time starter Stefan De Las’ left side ball led to Bartholomew’ try with the outside of the right foot going inches wide on the near left post. And moments later Bartholomew failed to make contact with Mohammed’s quicker grounder across the goal. The ball seemed to be following the W Connection striker throughout that he would have had many sleepless nights if he hadn’t converted later on.
The deadlock was finally broken just before the half hour mark when Keon Daniel, who continued with his dangerous looking deliveries from the right, floated one over for Bakr to clinically head home.
After the break, T&T continued to press for more goals as the Vincentians found it hard to even testing T&T’s Adrian Foncette in goal. They ran hard though and tried even harder to deny the hosts.
Mohammed’s left side corner preceded a Bakr header which went straight to goalie Dwaing Peters Sandy on 53 minutes and seven minutes later the same provider saw his corner headed wide by Bartholomew.
Lester Peltier wasn’t penetrative and was replaced by Carlyle Mitchell in the 68th minute and Downing came on for Mohammed.
It wasn’t long before Downing chased a loose ball on the left and timed his cross perfectly for an onrushing Bartholomew to stab home from the six yard. Two goals ahead and T&T began to see more light on the night.
At that stage, youth development director Anton Corneal, who sat on the bench for the first time in the series, was now on his feet sending out instructions. And the rest of the T&T faithful too were doing their own spurring on.
The goal that kept T&T alive then came when Atulla Guerra’s shot was partially blocked by the ‘keeper and the ball ended to the left of the goal for a busy Downing to square back for Bartholomew’s make sure connection.
The scorer had a chance to grab a hattrick but he alone could explain how his right footer ended up behind the goal after a breakaway down the left near the end. St Vincent lost a man for a second bookable offense but T&T had already done enough by then that not even that mattered at that point.
Teams
T&T[/b] – 1.Adrian Foncette, 5. Radanfah Abu Bakr (capt), 13. Stefan De Las,4.Corneal Thomas, 18.Christon Thomas (14.Elton John 74th), 7.Khaleem Hyland, 16.Javed Mohammed (11.Aaron Downing 68th), 8.Keon Daniel, 12.Atulla Guerra, 9.Lester Peltier (20.Carlyle Mitchell 68th), 10.Matthew Bartholomew.
SVG – 22. Dwaing Peters-Sandy, 19.Olean Hannaway,3. Keith James, 6.Shemol Trimmingham, 7.Iziah Sam, 8.Tiron Miller, 10. Quillian Tash, 12. Seinard Bowens, 11. Cornelius Stewart (Japheti Garrick 29th), 13. Amon Bascombe, 14. Romano Snagg.
