Olympic women ease past Bermuda
By Shaun Fuentes (TTFF)
Trinidad and Tobago’s Olympic Women’s team got their Caribbean Football Union qualification for the 2012 Olympics off to a winning start with a comfortable 5-1 victory over Bermuda in Dominican Republic on Tuesday.
T&T got their goals from Janine Francois, Kennya Cordner, Khadidra Debessette, Karyn Forbes and Candace Edwards. Tschana Wade scored the lone goal for Bermuda to leave them trailing 2-1 at half time. T&T then took control with three goals in the second half.
T&T head coach Richard Hood was pleased with the opening win.
“It’s a good win to start off with but the tournament is not over yet.We still have two more games to play and we want to top the group. We will definitely be looking to come away with another impressive victory in our next match,” Hood said.
Bermuda head coach Scott Morton added: "I wouldn't say (Trinidad) were too strong for us, but our fitness was definitely a problem. We were more effective in the first half than the second and caused Trinidad some problems.
T&T faces Dominica in their second game on Thursday and then close off the round against Dominican Republic on Saturday.The winner of the group will advance to the final qualification round while the runner-up will go into a play off for the third Caribbean qualifying spot.
Richard Hood later submitted a summary to TTFF Media.
"The T&T senior WNT completed a comprehensive 5-1 victory over their Bermudan counterparts at the Estadio Panamericano, San cristibal, Dominican Republic, on Tuesday evening. The Soca Princesses got off to a flying start with team Captain, Kenya "Yaya" Cordner striking in the 4th minute following great work down the right flank by Khadidra Debesette.
Debesette herself found the back of the net herself with a blast off a center from Patrice Campbell on the left flank. T&T the let their opponents in the game briefly as they got a goal following a lapse in concentration in the defense, but that was their only sight of goal as our girls totally dominated proceedings scoring three unanswered items in the second half through big shots from Candace Edwards in the 55th and Janine Francois five minutes later as well as a Karyn Forbes penalty in the 87th following a foul on Cordner.
"It is great to start the tournament on such a positive note. I thought that the Bermudan team was well organized and had some good players amongst them, but we were just too much for them. We had good attacks coming down both flanks and through the middle as well. And our defense played compact and assured except for a momentary lapse in focus which resulted in the opponents goal. Generally, I would have liked us to have scored more goals as we missed a number of chances, but I was relatively pleased with the performance," Hood stated.
Meantime, Haiti claimed a place in the finals CONCACAF Olympic women's qualifying, beating host Aruba 8-0 to earn one of the Caribbean's three berths last weekend.
Roselord Borgella scored three goals and Wisline Dolce and Roseleine Joseph had a pair each Sunday to lead Haiti, which also drew 1-1 with Cuba and beat Suriname 4-0. Joseph had Haiti's lone goal against Cuba on Friday, while Dolce had the finale against Suriname.
Both Haiti and Cuba finished atop Group A with seven points each, but Haiti advanced with a plus-12 goal difference in its three games. Cuba had a plus-3.
Haiti will be joined by the Group B winner and best runner-up from the two groups at the CONCACAF finals in Vancouver January 19-29. Two teams will qualify from CONCACAF for next year's Olympic Games in London.