W Connection in must-win clash with Xelaju

Reigning Digicel T&T Pro League champions, DirecTV W Connection faces a must-win encounter away to Guatemala’s Xelaju in their penultimate Group Eight match tonight if the team is to stay in the hunt for a Concacaf Champions League quarterfinal spot.

The meeting between W Connection and Xelaju takes place at the Stadio Mario Camposeco  (Quetzaltenango) from 10 pm (midnight TT time). When both teams met the first time on August 2, W Connection looked set for a comfortable win after goals from Hashim Arcia (23rd) and Rennie Britto (33rd), however substitute Edgar Chinchilla scored  in the 73rd and 88th minutes to earn an unlikely 2-2 draw for the visitors at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella.

 

 

Chinchilla also scored the lone goal in his teams’ 1-0 home win over Guadalajara Chivas of Mexico  in its other match on August 21 to lead the group with four points while Chivas, is second after it crushed W Connection 4-0 at home on August 29. In preparation for tonight’s match, the Stuart Charles-Fevrier coached W Connection left T&T a week ago was expected to get a good look at the Xelaju squad which suffered a 2-0 loss to Comunicaciones in a Guatemalan Premier Division match on Saturday last. Following tonight’s match, W Connection will host Chivas in its final preliminary round match on September 26 at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella from 8 pm.

 

 

Neal & Massy Caledonia AIA, the Caribbean Football Union Club champions, and the other T&T club in the competition has already been eliminated after earning one point from its first  three matches, in a 0-0 draw with CD Marathon of Honduras to lie at the bottom of the Group Four table and one match left away to Marathon on August 26, as well. Seattle Sounders of the US Major League Soccer heads the group with maximum six points after home-and-away 3-1 wins over Caledonia while Marathon has a point from its lone match. In Group Five, Puerto Rico Islanders, the other CFU representative is also last without a point after two matches, losing to Los Angeles Galaxy 4-0 and isidro Metapan of El Salvador, 3-1.