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Sunday, July 13, 2025

Central spoils D/Force return with 2-0 beating

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20140219

Cen­tral FC had the cour­tesy of wel­com­ing back de­fend­ing Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League cham­pi­on De­fence Force, and even with­out its head coach, Eng­lish­man Ter­ry Fen­wick, the "Sharks" man­aged a 2-0 win over the rusty sol­diers, ex­tend­ing their un­beat­en run to nine match­es at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va.

Cen­tral cap­tain Mar­vin Oliv­er broke the stub­born Army/Coast-Guard com­bi­na­tion just over the half-hour mark and mid­field­er Ja­son Mar­cano dou­bled the score mid­way through the sec­ond.

The win pro­pelled the "Sharks" three spots up in­to third with 23 points from 15 match­es, one point more than, now, fourth po­si­tioned North East Stars, and 10 adrift of lead­ers Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion while Point Fortin Civic is sec­ond with 26 points.

Mean­while, De­fence Force, who had been in­ac­tive in over a month pri­or to Tues­day's resched­uled Round Two Match Day Two fix­ture against Cen­tral, re­mained sev­enth with 13 points and five match­es in hand.

Speak­ing af­ter the loss De­fence Force coach Ross Rus­sell said, "The league is still open.

"We have five games in hand and I think W Con­nec­tion have start­ed to slide. If we win all our (re­main­ing) games in­clud­ing W Con­nec­tion, we can still win the league. I won't count (our chances) out yet."

Cen­tral, un­der the watch of rook­ie as­sis­tant coach Marc Lesie, had the first look at goal in the 21st minute but Mar­cano's free-kick fol­low­ing a foul on Plaza just out­side the area was too high.

It's said that Fen­wick trav­elled to his home­land, Eng­land, last Sat­ur­day be­cause of a fam­i­ly emer­gency but is ex­pect­ed to re­turn on Wednes­day.

In the 24th minute Plaza's low left-foot­ed strike brought the first save out of De­fence Force's sec­ond choice goalie Shel­don Clarke.

Then a blast by for­mer Army play­er Samuel Delice, free in­side the right of the area, rocked the cross­bar in the 27th minute.

Cen­tral were al­so lucky not to con­cede in the 32nd minute when a slip by De­vorn Jorsling in­side the six yard area al­lowed a save by the legs of goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams fol­low­ing a cross in­to the area by Kevon Carter.

But a minute lat­er on the 33rd, the sol­diers con­ced­ed, when a deft touch off Oliv­er's boot, volleyed past Clarke at first post for a 1-0 ad­van­tage af­ter Plaza head­ed a poor Army clear­ance back in­to the area.

De­fence Force was close to equal­is­ing in the 70th minute but Carter's poor head­er off an ear­ly cross by sub­sti­tute Ker­ry Joseph, re­sult­ed in an easy gath­er by Williams on the goal-line and a minute lat­er, Mar­cano dou­bled Cen­tral's lead 2-0, for his third con­sec­u­tive goal in as many match­es.

The en­er­getic mid­field­er picked up on sub­sti­tute Jo­han Pelti­er's pass in­to the area, slipped away from Clarke, and in an anx­ious ef­fort, hooked a left foot­ed strike un­der two de­fend­ers and the Army goalie.

"Cen­tral didn't play all over us... some­thing I thought would have hap­pened," added Rus­sell. 'We were in the game for the 90 min­utes and had chances (which we didn't con­vert). So it was about our sharp­ness. Oth­er teams have been play­ing reg­u­lar­ly while we haven't been play­ing at all."

Four min­utes af­ter Mar­cano's goal, Plaza, a con­stant threat in the Army de­fence, tried his luck from out­side the area but was too high of the goal.

As for De­fence Force, Cur­tis Gon­za­les, who was lucky not to be booked by ref­er­ee Gor­don Mal­oney near the end, was the most im­pres­sive of the sol­diers, who will next take on San Juan Jabloteh on Fri­day night in Round Two Match Day Nine from 8 pm at the very same Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.

To­day, W Con­nec­tion will have a chance to push its lead back to ten points over Pt Fortin when it faces Cale­do­nia at Cou­va from 7 pm.

Re­sults

Tues­day: Cen­tral FC 2 (Mar­vin Oliv­er 33rd, Ja­son Mar­cano 71st) vs De­fence Force 0

Cur­rent stand­ings

Team P W D L F A Pts

W Con­nec­tion 14 10 3 1 30 9 33

Pt Fortin Civic 15 8 2 5 23 16 26

Cen­tral FC 15 5 8 2 22 15 23

North East Stars 14 6 4 4 13 9 22

Po­lice 14 6 3 5 19 20 21

Cale­do­nia 14 5 5 4 22 16 20

De­fence Force 9 4 1 4 15 16 13

Jabloteh 15 3 2 10 19 34 11

Rangers 14 1 0 13 11 39 3

?

Up­com­ing match­es

To­day: Cale­do­nia AIA vs W Con­nec­tion, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 7 pm

To­mor­row: St Ann's Rangers vs Cen­tral FC, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va,

6 pm

De­fence Force vs San Juan Jabloteh, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 8 pm

Sat­ur­day: North East Stars vs Po­lice, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar,

3.30pm


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