Long-time rivals, and two of most storied teams in local and Concacaf football, Defence Force and Police will renew their rivalry in the quarterfinal round of the Toyota Classic competition on Saturday at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium, Marabella from 3 pm.
This after both teams, which have never lifted the title in its eight-year history won their round-of-16 matches in contrasting fashion on the weekend. The "Teteron Boys" who reached the 2012 final against North East Stars and were beaten on penalty kicks after a 2-2 full-time draw drubbed National Super League club, Petrotrin Palo Seco inspired by a hat-trick from out-of-favour national striker Devorn Jorsling.
The burly Jorsling, the T&T Pro League's second all-time highest scorer with 115 goals, seven behind San Juan Jabloteh's Kerry Baptiste and more than twice as much as any active player in the competition found the back of the net in the 30th, 45th, and 69th minutes while Kerry Joseph (53rd), Jemel Sebro (77th) and Darryl Trim (81st) got the others.
Last year, Defence Force stormed its way through to the semifinal including a 5-1 spanking of fellow Digicel T&T Pro League club, Central FC before being upstaged in the semifinals by, losing finalist Club Sando, 2-3.
Police, on the other hand, which has enjoyed a decent league start to sit joint second on the table with Central FC was dumped at the round-of-16 stage last time out, but made a brighter start this time around with a 2-1 win over Super League's Guaya United, another shock semifinalist last year.
Both Police and Defence Force have met once so far this season, with the latter coming away with a 4-2 Pro League win back on October 3.
The winner of the Police/Defence Force encounter will earn a semifinal spot against the winner of the meeting between 2008 winner San Juan Jabloteh against the victors of the Club Sando/North East Stars round-of-16 match which has been rescheduled to Friday at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva from 8pm.
And in the other already determined quarterfinal, first round of giant-killers WASA FC led by T&T all-time top goalscorer Stern John comes up against Caledonia AIA at the Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar from 3pm on Saturday.
WASA created the biggest upset of the competition thus far by booting three-time tournament winner and defending champion DirecTV W Connection 4-3 on penalty-kicks with John scoring the decisive kick, after a 1-1 draw while Caledonia blanked Defence Force (Super League) 3-0 in their encounter and will be desperate to avoid a repeat of last year's quarterfinal loss to Club Sando, on penalties, after a 2-2 draw.
Also through to the last-eight are Digicel T&T Pro League's Pt Fortin Civic who got a goal each from Marcus Joseph (37th), Andre Toussaint (58th) and Andrei Pacheco (62nd) in a 3-0 blanking of St Ann's Rangers at Mahaica Oval and Jabloteh which hammered Tobago's 1976 FC Phoenix 4-0.