St. Louis spurs on Trinidad and Tobago Women to 2-1 win over Guatemala
TTFA MediaTrinidad and Tobago’s Senior Women footballers pulled off a spirited comeback to secure their first three points of the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying round when they came from a goal down to defeat Guatemala 2-1 at the BBVA Compass Stadium on Thursday.
An equalizing goal by Kennya Cordner and a stunning 78th minute winner by veteran Tasha St Louis sealed the win for the Women Warriors who had earlier fallen behind following a bizarre penalty call which led to Ana Lucia Martinez’s conversion on 17 minutes. St Louis was named CONCACAF “Player of the Game” for her performance. Canada were meantime comfortable 6-0 winners in the evening’s second match. T&T will meet Canada on Sunday at the same venue.
The win was the first at international level for Richard Hood since he took over the head coach position but it came only after skipper Maylee Attin-Johnson and her teammates persisted for the 90 plus minutes. T&T dominated on goal attempts, having some 18 attempts on goal including four decent chances in the opening 15 minutes which were muffed by Cordner and Mariah Shade.
Guatemala eased themselves into the match after struggling to handle T&T’s pace and athleticism. And the call in their favour by American Referee Margaret Domka helped put them ahead. T&T defender Karyn Forbes picked the ball up with her hands on the right of the goal after camera replays clearly showed the ball going out of play but instead Domka, a referee at the FIFA 2015 Women’s World Cup, blew for a penalty which Martinez’ wrongsided Kimika Forbes to put the Central Americans ahead.
But T&T didn’t back down and continued to press on. Guatemala though were able to hold on their lead until the half time break.
T&T head coach Richard Hood later spoke about the win, saying : “I was delighted with the victory but so happy about the performance. I think we could have been more clinical and we made the game hard for ourselves. But all in all I think the ladies deserved credit for coming back to earn the three points and hopefully now we can continue to build and look ahead to the next two games against Canada and Guyana.”
Team captain Attin-Johnson, who scored the winning penalty when T&T defeated Guatemala on a similar 2-1 scoreline in the 2015 World Cup qualifier, added: “It’s a good win for us to start the tournament. We knew we needed to start well and come out on top in our first game and now we can hopefully push on from here for the rest of the tournament.
T&T – 1.Kimika Forbes (GK); 6.Khadidra Debesette, 14.Karyn Forbes, 5.Arin King, 2.Jenelle Cunningham (16.Jo Marie Lewis 75′); 9.Maylee Attin-Johnson (captain), 11.Janine Francois (15.Liana Hinds 65′); 12.Ahkeela Mollon (7.Kayla Taylor 56′), 10.Tasha St Louis, 19.Kennya Cordner; 3.Mariah Shade.
Unused substitutes: 18.Shalette Alexander (GK), 20.Saundra Baron (GK), 4.Danielle Blair, 8.Victoria Swift, 13.Naomi Guerra, 17.Anastasia Prescott, Chevonne John
Kennya Cordner's equalizer<![CDATA[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/gauTGyPurkI" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/gauTGyPurkI</a>]]>Tasha St. Louis' game-winner<![CDATA[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/j0tI6afrHHE" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/j0tI6afrHHE</a>]]>Post-game interview with Tasha St. Louis<![CDATA[<a href="https://www.youtube.com/v/trNbWZXBkKQ" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" class="bbc_link bbc_flash_disabled new_win">https://www.youtube.com/v/trNbWZXBkKQ</a>]]>
