Guatemala rally to beat TT U-15s

ONCE AGAIN, the Trinidad and Tobago Under-15 football team allowed late-game heroics by their opponents to taint a creditable performance at the Concacaf Championship being contested at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, United States.

Playing against Guatemala for the minor places, after being knocked out of contention for a spot in the quarterfinals of the First Division, the TT squad were on track for their first win with a 2-0 lead after 60 minutes. However, Guatemala stormed back with goals in the 60th, 64th, 68th and the 70th minutes to make the final score 4-2 in the Central American nation’s favour.

TT started well, as for the first time in the tournament they took an early chance which they created, with Ja-Shawn Thomas opening the scoring in the first minute, a lead which they held to the end of the first 35-minute half.

Unfortunately for coach Stuart Charles-Fevrier, he lost starting goalkeeper Kanye Lazarus just before the break after he was upended by Manolo Juarez and taken off injured. There were also three substitutions in the second half with Molik Khan, Nathaniel James and Isaiah Thompson replacing Abdul Quddoos-Hypolite, Kassidy Davidson and Dantaye Gilbert respectively.

The lads in red were still in control with Khan whizzing in a well-connected attempt which the Guatemalan keeper did well to get his fingers to. From the resulting corner Guatemala’s captain Rodrigo Villalobos managed to steer the ball into his own net for a 2-0 score line. The match could have been judged as even after that, until disaster struck for TT with Chrisphian Estrada hitting a double and one each from Joshua Trigueno and Anderson Molina doing the damage for the Central Americans.

Coach Charles-Fevrier was direct in his comments following the match. “As coach of the team I accept full responsibility for the results of the team, I will not run away from it or hide from it. The players gave everything that they had, they played well.”

He continued, “Like I said early, It’s a process, it’s development and they could only learn from this. I just hope going forward we will be able to continue playing at that level (of competition)”.

The coach indicated that he is keen on boosting the squad and has initiated plans to do so with a view to having some fresh personnel in camp when training resumes.