T&T So­ca War­riors will be con­fi­dent of se­cur­ing a vic­to­ry against cel­lar-placed An­guil­la in their fi­nal Caribbean Foot­ball Union Cup Group Five qual­i­fi­er to­day from 6 pm at Warn­er Park Sta­di­um, Bas­seterre to en­sure pas­sage in­to the next round of com­pe­ti­tion. For the Hut­son "Bar­ber" Charles-coached T&T, the task is sim­ple, avoid de­feat and it will fin­ish top of the group. A sur­prise loss will open the door for ei­ther host St Kitts/Nevis or French Guiana to fin­ish top.

Sub­sti­tute Kevon Carter scored six min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half for the So­ca War­riors to squeeze out a 1-0 win over host St Kitts/Nevis in front of 1,700 spec­ta­tors on Fri­day night to stay top of their four-team group with max­i­mum six points and move with­in a point of the semi­fi­nal round. As­sis­tant coach Derek King was in charge for the match, af­ter Charles was red card­ed in Wednes­day's open­ing 4-1 win over French Guiana. The War­riors were stretched de­fen­sive­ly right un­til the fi­nal minute as the hosts pressed for the equalis­er and en­joyed more pos­ses­sion for large por­tions of the sec­ond-half.

They suf­fered a set-back two min­utes be­fore the half, when World Cup vet­er­an Den­sill Theobald who had mar­shalled play from the mid­field had to be re­placed due to an an­kle sprain. His re­place­ment, Carter, turned out to be T&T's hero, shoot­ing home from close range on an as­sist by Clyde Leon, af­ter he was sent through by Ja­mal Gay. In Fri­day's first match, French Guiana got a hat-trick from Gary Pi­gree to whip An­guil­la 4-1 and keep its hopes of top spot in the group alive. Lu­dovic Baal added the oth­er while Ter­rence Rodgers was on tar­get for the elim­i­nat­ed An­guil­la.

In tonight's sec­ond match, St Kitts/Nevis tack­les French Guiana in the bat­tle for sec­ond spot and a pos­si­ble place in the sec­ond round. The sec­ond placed team will qual­i­fy for the next round, if it amass­es six points and a bet­ter goal-dif­fer­ence of plus-one, which Bar­ba­dos end­ed with in Group Four. Al­ready through to the sec­ond round are Group One win­ner Haiti and run­ner-up Puer­to Ri­co; Mar­tinique and Suri­name, the first and sec­ond placed teams from Group Three and Group Four win­ner, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. The oth­er first round se­ries, Group Two will open on Oc­to­ber 21 with Guyana against St Vin­cent & the Grenadines, and host St Lu­cia against Cu­ra­cao at Warn­er Park in Gros Islet, St Lu­cia.

Re­sults

T&T 1 (Kevon Carter 51st) vs St Kitts/Nevis 0

French Guiana 4 (Gary Pi­gree 3rd, 45th, 50th, Lu­dovic Baal 74th) vs An­guil­la 1 (Ter­rence Rodgers 59th)

Teams

T&T: Jan-Michael Williams (capt), Car­lyle Mitchell, Robert Primus, Seon Pow­er (Yel­low 78), Jo­evin Jones, Daniel Cyrus, Hugh­tun Hec­tor, Keon Daniel (Cur­tis Gon­za­les 82nd), Clyde Leon, Den­sill Theobald (Kevon Carter 43rd) (Willis Plaza 84th), Ja­mal Gay.

Subs not used: Ka­reem Moses, Mar­vin Phillip (goal­keep­er), Sylvester Tees­dale, De­vorn Jorsling

Coach: Hud­son Charles (T&T).

St Kitts/Nevis: Ju­lani Archibald, Pa­trece Liburd, Ger­ard Williams, Tes­fa Robin­son, Va­neer Har­ris, Thrizen Leader, Ro­maine Sawyers, De­vaughn El­liott (Or­lan­do Mitchum 61st), At­i­ba Har­ris (Yel­low 24), Zepha­ni­ah Thomas (Er­rol O'Lough­lin 75th), Ian Lake (Aaron Moses-Gar­vey 79th).

Subs not used: Ak­il Gri­er, Jo­vaugh­ne Leader, Ak­il By­ron (goal­keep­er), Mu­das­sa Howe

Coach: Jef­frey Hazel (St Kitts).

Ref­er­ee: David Rubal­ca­ba (Cu­ba).

Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A GD Pts

T&T 2 2 0 0 5 1 +4 6

St Kitts/Nevis 2 1 0 1 2 1 +1 3

French Guiana 2 1 0 1 5 5 +0 3

An­guil­la 2 0 0 2 1 6 -5 0