An­drew Gioan­net­ti

T&T's youth­ful look­ing So­ca War­riors suf­fered a 3-2 loss to Eu­ro­pean min­nows Fin­land in new­ly ap­point­ed in­ter­im coach Hut­son Charles' first in­ter­na­tion­al match, at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Wright­son Road, yes­ter­day. De­spite mak­ing six changes dur­ing the match, Charles was un­able to stop T&T con­ced­ing three goals, one in the first and two in the sec­ond half, while al­low­ing a lead to slip away on two oc­ca­sions. T&T opened the match look­ing sol­id in de­fence, with Mar­vin Phillip, de­but­ing as T&T's cap­tain hold­ing the fort well. Chances were few and far be­tween in the open­ing half-hour, while a com­bi­na­tion of Kendall Jagdeosingh, Ataulla Guer­ra and Kevin Moli­no kept the ball mov­ing freely in the mid­field. With 32 min­utes gone, how­ev­er, T&T found the open­ing goal through un­der-23 de­fend­er Mekeil Williams who slot­ted home from close range fol­low­ing a failed set-piece. With the ball falling back to Cur­tis Gon­za­les, a pin-point cross-field pass found Seon Pow­er who found an open Williams to fin­ish.

A lapse in con­cen­tra­tion, how­ev­er, al­lowed T&T's de­fence to con­cede just two min­utes with­in the restart through strik­er Riku Ris­ki, who bagged the equal­iz­er. On the 31st minute mark, just mo­ments be­fore T&T's open­er, Fin­land's Mi­ka Aar­i­ta­lo was in­tro­duced, and made a quick im­pres­sion, as three min­utes lat­er, he was left un­marked on the by-line to knock-on neat­ly to an open Riku, who made no mis­take fin­ish­ing. The match went in­to half-time lev­el and the vis­it­ing team the more sat­is­fied. While Finnish coach Mixu Paate­lainen made two changes go­ing in­to the sec­ond half, Charles left the team un­touched. How­ev­er, when San Juan Jabloteh at­tack­er Willis Plaza and un­der-23 Col­lege of Charleston mid­field­er Sean De Sil­va were in­tro­duced in the 57th minute, the match burst in­to life with more mid­field op­tions seem­ing­ly avail­able.

It was Plaza who cre­at­ed T&T's sec­ond lead which came in the 66th minute. An ex­cel­lent cross from Plaza met De­vorn Jorsling who scuffed a shot, which fell to Moli­no who smashed T&T in­to a 2-1 lead. Fin­land, look­ing the more struc­tured and dis­ci­plined team, re­spond­ed with two goals which de­cid­ed the out­come. A minute af­ter Kasper Hamalainen, stung the palms of goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillips, who im­pressed in his de­but as T&T's cap­tain. Toni Kolehmainen gave Fin­land the equal­iz­er for the sec­ond time in the 72nd minute. Both Hamalainen and Kolehmainen, were the thorns in T&T's side, and proved lethal when giv­en too much room. The win­ning goal came in the 78th minute when Aar­i­ta­lo, who got the as­sist on Fin­land's first item, con­nect­ed on a swerv­ing cross, win­ning the match for the Scan­di­na­vians. T&T's Olympic (un­der-23) team will meet the same op­po­si­tion on Wednes­day at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um, Ba­co­let.