De­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and three-time win­ners of the SIS In­dus­tri­al Foot­ball League, T&TEC, re­ceived the shock of their lives Mon­day, suf­fer­ing a 4-0 de­feat cour­tesy of se­cu­ri­ty firm, EB­SL, who are play­ing in their first ever com­pe­ti­tion.

Ac­tion heat­ed up on Mon­day as the top eight teams faced off in quar­ter­fi­nal ac­tion as the com­pe­ti­tion draws to an ex­cit­ing con­clu­sion.

Both teams faced off at the Yara Recre­ation Ground in Savonet­ta in what was a keen­ly con­test­ed fix­ture where EB­SL played ex­cel­lent to­tal foot­ball. Menel­ic El­cock put them ahead in the third minute with a clin­i­cal touch that left the keep­er be­wil­dered af­ter a swift break led by mid­field­er Keinol Paul.

From then on, the game tilt­ed in EB­SL's favour as they dis­played a more ag­gres­sive and pur­pose­ful brand of foot­ball than pre­vi­ous en­coun­ters. The de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons fought hard and cre­at­ed sev­er­al chances but the fi­nal touch was al­ways lack­ing.

Ten min­utes in­to the sec­ond half EB­SL dou­bled their lead as the youth­ful team seemed to have the edge in speed over T&TEC and took ad­van­tage of an­oth­er speedy counter at­tack.

The de­feat in the elec­tric­i­ty men was ap­par­ent as their pass­ing be­came loose and the ur­gency in their ball move­ment dis­si­pat­ed. A de­fen­sive blun­der in the 36th minute cre­at­ed the per­fect op­por­tu­ni­ty for Paul to push his team fur­ther ahead with a neat fin­ish and Vic­tor Ho­sein put the nail on the cof­fin with a bril­liant run that beat two de­fend­ers and shoot a blind­er from the edge of the box that left the keep­er flat­foot­ed.

As a re­sult, EB­SL earned the chance to face The Na­tion­al Gas Com­pa­ny (NGC) in what was ex­pect­ed to be a com­pet­i­tive semi­fi­nal fix­ture on Wednes­day.

NGC were 2-0 win­ners over Plipde­co at the Plipde­co Ground in what was the "Sha­ka Show".

For­ward Sha­ka Bethel put his team ahead in the sev­enth minute with a leap­ing vol­ley off a well-placed cor­ner kick that sent his sup­port­ers wild.

He was at it again eight min­utes lat­er, this time tak­ing his own cor­ner that fooled every­one as they watched it sail in­to the far cor­ner of the net to lead his team to a hard fought win.

In the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nal match­es, Nu Iron suf­fered an ag­o­nis­ing de­feat at the hands of IP­SL's Methanol Di­vi­sion 3-1 on penal­ties af­ter the game end­ed in a 1-1 tie. They were slat­ed to meet AUM Di­vi­sion who boot­ed hosts SIS from the com­pe­ti­tion with a dou­ble from Glen­don Re­ece in the oth­er semi­fi­nal fix­ture on Wednes­day.

The grand fi­nal is sched­uled for to­day at the Plipde­co Ground and will kick off from 4.30 pm with the third place play­off, fol­lowed by an ex­hi­bi­tion match fea­tur­ing Brent San­cho's TT Pro League out­fit, Cen­tral FC and an all-star team fea­tur­ing hosts SIS.

En­ter­tain­ment will be pro­vid­ed by pop­u­lar so­ca artists, live DJ and the SIS Point Fortin Jam­mers Rhythm Sec­tion.

Re­sults

Mon­day

IP­SL MX 1 (J Lewis) vs Nu Iron 1 (A Hunte).MX won 3-1 on penal­ties.

T&TEC 0 vs EB­SL 4 (V. Ho­sein 2 goals, K Paul, M El­cock)

IP­SL AUM 2 (G Re­ece 2 goals) vs SIS 0

NGC 2 (Sha­ka Bethel 2 goals) vs Plipde­co 0

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