Nigel Si­mon

Host club, George­town edged past Elite 2-1 in an all Cay­man Is­lands clash to top the First Round Group One qual­i­fiers for the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­ons Cup on Thurs­day night. Play­ing at the TE Mc Field Sports Cen­tre, George­town, Elite which won 2-1 over North Vil­lage Rams of Bermu­da on Tues­day at the same venue went ahead in the fifth minute through Dwayne Wright. How­ev­er, George­town com­ing off a 0-0 draw with Rams in its first match on Sun­day hit back with goals from Fabi­an Mal­colm (40th) and Lim­berg Cuevas-Ebanks (87th), to steal all three points and top the group with four points, one more than Elite. Group Two to be played in Guyana from April 15-22 will con­sist of lo­cal sides Mile­rock and 2011 CFU club third-place fin­ish­er Al­pha Unit­ed, Huben­tut For­tu­na of Cu­ra­cao and reg­u­lar com­peti­tors SV In­ter Mo­en­go­tapoe of Suri­name while Group Three, to be con­test­ed in Haiti from April 15-22, fea­tures Hait­ian qual­i­fiers, Tem­pete and Bal­ti­more as well as Cen­tro Bar­ber of Cu­ra­cao and Baya­mon FC of Puer­to Ri­co.

The three first-round groups will qual­i­fy three group win­ners and a best run­ner-up to the sec­ond, eight-team group stage May 1-6. The four qual­i­fiers will join seed­ed sides, Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers, the two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­on, and Cale­do­nia AIA, paired in one of the sec­ond-round groups, and W Con­nec­tion, al­so run­ner-up in 2000 and 2003 and Bar­racu­d­as FC of An­tigua, in the oth­er. The win­ners and run­ners-up from the two sec­ond-round groups will ad­vance to the CFU club cham­pi­onship fi­nals May 23-27, with three teams qual­i­fy­ing for next sea­son's Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League. W Con­nec­tion has won the CFU ti­tle four-times, 2001, 2002, 2006 and 2009, the last of which was a 2–1 tri­umph over two-time reign­ing cham­pi­on Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya while Cale­do­nia will be mak­ing a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive ap­pear­ance in the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter reach­ing the quar­ter­fi­nals on de­but last year be­fore bow­ing out to Haiti's Tem­pete, the same club which stopped 1985 and 1987 cham­pi­ons, De­fence Force in the semi­fi­nals.

Re­sults

CFU Club Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fiers:

First Round:

Last Thurs­day:

George­town 2 (Fabi­an Mal­colm 40th, Lim­berg Cuevas-Ebanks 87th) vs Elite 1 (Dwayne Wright 5th).

Last Tues­day:

Elite 2 (Mario Rene Carter 13th, 66th) vs North Vil­lage Rams 1 (Keis­han Bean 60th).

Last Sun­day:

George­town 0 vs North Vil­lage Rams 0.