Josiah Trimmingham came to the rescue in the 88th minute for T&T on Tuesday night, to secure a fair 1-1 draw against Cuba in the third and final Group A match to see the host team unbeaten en route to the CFU Under-20 Championship final.
Trimmingham scored a header off a well worked set piece to put T&T on seven points from three matches, while Cuba sighed a massive relief as they second spot. T&T and Cuba to move into Friday's final and third-place playoff, respectively, while Cuba also confirmed its spot at next year's Concacaf Under-20 Championship, in Jamaica.
Before meeting Cuba, the young "Warriors" had already secured their berth in the confederation's final qualification round for the Fifa 2015 Under-20 World Cup, having won its opening two matches.
And, while the Hasely Crawford Stadium was ecstatic for the late equalising goal, a Cuba win would not have had much bearing on the standings. Had Cuba won 1-0, T&T would still have topped Group B on goal difference. A head-to-head would have only come into consideration had the two teams shared an equal goal difference.
T&T will meet the winner of Group B, in the CFU final on Friday, after Cuba, Group A runner-up, meets the Group B runner-up in the third-place play-off. The final standings in Group B was determined after a double-header at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva, concluded after press time last night.
Finishing unbeaten did not come easy for the host team. With the exception of T&T's 4-0 win over Curacao on Sunday, Coach Derek King's players were forced to grind out their 2-1 opening win over Suriname, last Friday, and finally the draw with Cuba, which had by all indications been heading towards a win for the latter, not to suggest that T&T deserved to lose.
Kevon Goddard was ruled out of the match due to illness, while the ever present figure of forward Kadeem Corbin was left on the bench until the last quarter of the match. Martieon Watson and Neveal Hackshaw, who started the previous two matches as well as Andre Fortune, who lined up in the opening fixture, also started on the bench.
Despite T&T making four noticable changes to the team which defeated Curacao, the young "Warriors" controlled large chunks within the two halves.
Forward Nicholas Dillon made his first start of the tournament against Cuba. A strong presence in the match early on, he was second in terms of goal scoring opportunities only to Jabari Mitchell. It was Dillon who came closest to opening for T&T. In the ninth minute, following a nifty footwork from Mitchell, who weaved his way into Cuba's penalty box, before laying off to Dillon, who smashed a close ranged effort straight into Cuba's goalkeeper, Elier Pozo. He then got a second chance but Dillon then rocked the crossbar. Seconds after Cuba got its shock lead.
Following a loose defensive pass, T&T keeper Johan Welch was forced out of his zone to head the ball clear, but it landed only to the feet of Cuba's midfield talisman, Frank Manuel Lopez, who instantly took the opportunity halfway though T&T's half with a powerful effort, which spun off a defender, over Welch's head and into the goal.
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Line-ups: T&T
Johan Welch, Shannon Gomez, Jesus Perez, Maurice Ford, Levi Garcia, Josiah Trimmingham, Aikim Andrews (Akeem Garcia 61st), Kion Joseph, Akeem Humphrey, Jabari Mitchell (Andre Fortune 76th), Nicholas Dillon (Kadeem Corbin 66th)
Unused subs: Martieon Watson, Neveal Hackshaw, Kishun Seecharan, Matthew Woo Ling.
Thursday–Group A
T&T 1 (Josiah Trimmingham 88th) v Cuba 1 (Frank Manuel Lopez 10th)
Curacao 3 (Jersylee Riley 79th, Isai Marselia 22nd, 53rd) v Suriname 2 (Ricardo Faerber 15th, Giovanni Asoman 26th)