Nigel Si­mon

The in form Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA will hope to close the gap at the top of the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League ta­ble to one point be­hind lead­ers De­fence Force when it faces North East Stars in the first match of a resched­uled sec­ond round dou­ble-head­er at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, from 6 pm tonight. Cur­rent­ly, De­fence Force, which had its 12-match league un­beat­en run end­ed on Fri­day last in a 1-0 de­feat to North East Stars, still leads the ta­ble with 36 points from 16 match­es, four clear of Cale­do­nia, while de­fend­ing cham­pi­on Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion is next with 25 points fol­lowed by Stars with 24.

With a top-of-the-ta­ble clash against De­fence Force set for Fri­day, the Jer­ry Moe-coached Cale­do­nia is still bask­ing in their sec­ond straight T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy win, 2-0 over Cen­tral FC, and a 1-0 tri­umph over W Con­nec­tion a week ago at to­day's venue, and will be des­per­ate to add to its two pre­vi­ous vic­to­ries over Stars this sea­son, 1-0 in the Pro League and 2-1 in the FA semi­fi­nals.How­ev­er, Stars, led by in form strik­er Cor­nell Glen, will have their own as­pi­ra­tions of tak­ing all three points to con­tin­ue its climb up the ta­ble un­der first year coach and for­mer na­tion­al cap­tain An­gus Eve.

For tonight's en­counter, Eve will have to do with­out the sus­pend­ed left back Glen­ton Wolfe, while Cale­do­nia should be at full strength bar­ring any in­juries.Two hours lat­er, W Con­nec­tion will come up against Cen­tral FC in a "Cou­va Der­by" with the cur­rent ti­tle hold­er al­so keen for all three points to keep its hopes of re­tain­ing the league ti­tle alive.When both teams met in the first round, W Con­nec­tion came away with a com­fort­able 3-0 win but since then the Cen­tral Sharks have played some im­pres­sive foot­ball, in­clud­ing se­cur­ing a 4-2 win over Po­lice on Fri­day last, and will no doubt put up a bet­ter show­ing tonight.How­ev­er, Cen­tral FC will have to do so with Omar Charles and in­flu­en­tial mid­field­er Mar­vin Oliv­er, who are both sus­pend­ed for the match.

Match­es

To­day's Dig­i­cel T&T

Pro League match­es:

n Wednes­day: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

Cale­do­nia vs North East Stars,

6 pm

W Con­nec­tion vs Cen­tral FC,

8 pm

Fri­day: Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la

W Con­nec­tion vs Rangers, 6 pm

Cale­do­nia vs De­fence Force, 8 pm

Sat­ur­day:

North East Stars vs Po­lice, 5 pm –Venue TBA

Stand­ings

Teams P W D L F A Pts

De­fence Force 16 11 3 2 43 17 36

Cale­do­nia 15 10 2 3 42 21 32

W Con­nec­tion 15 7 4 4 27 16 25

N/East Stars 15 6 6 3 19 13 24

Cen­tral FC 15 6 4 5 21 24 22

Po­lice 16 3 5 8 22 31 14

Rangers 16 2 4 10 19 40 10

T&TEC 16 2 2 12 12 43 8