An­drew Gioan­net­ti

T&T's beach soc­cer team may have rued the change in sched­ule which saw it pit­ted against Mex­i­co in its first ever match as a Fi­fa recog­nised team, as they suc­cumbed to a 9-1 de­feat by the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans, in Nas­sau, The Ba­hamas, last evening.

It was al­so T&T's first match of the Con­ca­caf Beach Soc­cer Cham­pi­onship, a qual­i­fy­ing com­pe­ti­tion for this year's Fi­fa Beach Soc­cer World Cup, but Mex­i­co's sec­ond. To T&T's con­so­la­tion, the Mex­i­cans were even more ruth­less on the open­ing day when they dropped Cana­da 10-0.

Re­gard­less of the re­sult, T&T would have need­ed to re­cov­er with­in hours for its sec­ond match of Group B, against Cana­da, which is sched­uled for 10.45 am, this morn­ing.

As it stands, T&T is sec­ond in the ta­ble ahead of third-placed Cana­da. On­ly one best sec­ond-placed team of the three groups will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nal stage. The two fi­nal­ists will qual­i­fy for No­vem­ber's World Cup. To­mor­row, knock­out ac­tion will be­gin, two semi­fi­nals, as well as the sev­enth to tenth-place play-offs.