An emo­tion­al T&TEC will have its eyes set on re­claim­ing top spot in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League when it faces de­fend­ing cham­pi­on, De­fence Force from 6 pm to­day at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va. The match is the lone en­counter sched­uled for to­day. T&TEC, one of three teams on 18 points, trails Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA (19 pts), while De­fence Force, com­ing off a 1-1 draw with Di­recTV North East Stars on Tues­day is sev­enth on the eight-team ta­ble with eight points from six match­es. But while the "Teteron Boys", who had a late start to the sea­son, have been in­volved in match­es al­most twice week­ly since the start of the month, T&TEC has not seen com­pet­i­tive ac­tion, since a 1-0 win over Adam's Con­struc­tion San Juan Jabloteh 13 days ago.

This was due to the trag­ic death of its em­ploy­ee, 42-year-old Gary Pat­ter­son who died af­ter he was elec­tro­cut­ed while on du­ty on the Pe­nal Quinam Road. Pat­ter­son, was the club's South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion man­ag­er and al­so held the same post with the Un­der-14, Un­der-16 and Un­der-18 Di­vi­sion teams. Due to the tragedy and by the re­quest of the club, T&TEC's match against Po­lice card­ed for that same af­ter­noon was can­celled and to­day the Dex­ter Cyrus-coached squad will no doubt be look­ing to ho­n­our Pat­ter­son's mem­o­ry. Ex­pect­ed to re­turn from na­tion­al Un­der-23 du­ty for De­fence Force are de­fend­er Cur­tis Gon­za­les and goal­keep­er, Shel­don Clarke, who were part of the Olympic team's 1-0 win over Fin­land on Wednes­day night.

To­day's fix­tures

De­fence Force vs T&TEC, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, 6 pm.

Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

Cale­do­nia 12 6 1 5 16 15 19

T&TEC 9 5 3 1 13 7 18

Jabloteh 10 5 3 2 17 12 18

W Conn 11 6 0 5 10 11 18

Rangers 10 2 3 5 9 14 9

NE Stars 10 2 3 5 7 10 9

D/Force 6 2 2 2 7 7 8

Po­lice 7 1 3 3 7 9 6