T&T Under-23 (Olympic) men footballers were eliminated from the 2016 Olympic Qualifying race when they suffered a 5-3 defeat to St Vincent and The Grenadines in their opening Caribbean Football Union Group phase match at the Juan Ramon Louriel Stadium in Bayamon, Puerto Rico on Saturday night.
The team, coached by Zoran Vranes, went into the encounter needing at least a draw to maintain their chances of advancing to the CFU semifinal round, but suffered early setbacks, trailing 4-0 in the opening half.
The loss for the young Soca Warriors could have been much worse after St Vincent and The Grenadines stormed into a 4-0 half-time lead.
Tevin Slater fired the "Vincy Heat" into a 17th minute and two minutes later Seattle Sounders FC II forward Oalex Anderson doubled their advantage.
Seven minutes before the half-time whistle St Vincent and The Grenadines added to their tally against the woeful T&T squad through Slater and in the 42nd the match was all over as a contest with Brad Miguel making it 4-0.
USA-based striker Rundell Winchester, a member of T&T senior squad for next month's Concacaf Gold Cup got T&T on the scoreboard in the 55th minute while Defence Force striker Akeem Roach brought the Vranes squad within two goals with his first international item in the 68th.
Roach then got another in the 79th to make it 3-4, but any hopes T&T had of salvaging anything from the contest ended in the 85th when Slater completed his hat-trick to extend the margin to 5-3.
Vranes was disappointed and said his team was punished for inexcusable mistakes on all of the goals.
"We made some huge mistakes and that cost us the match very early on," Vranes told TTFA Media after the loss.
"They didn't make any counters really but they scored when we made mistakes. They punished us and I could say it was soft goals but it killed us in the first half. Before they scored their goals we had chances to go ahead and it didn't work out for us. I think maybe they have five good chances and they scored all five of them. What can you say about that?" he added.
"The ball was out feet maybe 70 per cent but we could not capitalise. A lot of things did not go smoothly for us and we have one more game left here. Even though we had some problems with the team here before the game, I think we have more work ahead. We have to look at the future of our game. We have to come good again," Vranes said.
T&T will face Puerto Rico today with the home side, on one point, needing a convincing win to advance to the next stage ahead of the Vincentians who are now on four points. Only the group winners will advance to the next phase.
T&T line-up
Aaron Enil, Jesus Perez, Josiah Trimmingham, Aikim Andrews (Duane Muckette 70th minute), Jelani Felix, Alvin Jones, Neveal Hackshaw, Kadeem Corbin, Jomal Williams (Akeem Roach 65th ), Shackiel Henry (Ricardo John 31st ), Rundell Winchester
Subs not used: Montel Joseph, Leland Archer, Martieon Watson, Xavier Rajpaul, Jabari Mitchell
Result
SVG 5 (Tevin Slater 17th, 38th, 85th, Oalex Anderson 19th, Brad Miguel 42nd) vs T&T 3 (Akeem Roach 68th, 79th minutes, Rundell Winchester 55th)