T&T's Under-17 footballers succumbed to their second defeat in the T&T Football Association’s Youth Invitational Football Tournament at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo Friday night, going down to Venezuela 4-0.
After a gutsy 4-5 loss to Panama on Wednesday, coach Stuart Charles-Fevrier made a few changes to his starting line-up as he sought a change in his side’s fortunes.
But that didn't prevent the same types of blunders that accounted for their loss in the first game from being repeated early on.
Instead, it was the Venezuelans who drew first blood when Deivi Hernandez benefitted from a neat through-ball and he rifled his shot past goalkeeper Tristan Edwards in the 22nd minute.
A minute before the halftime interval, the Venezuelans went two-goals up courtesy another defensive error. An unmarked Carlos Torres was picked out from a right-side corner as the T&T defence failed to attack the ball and when it reached Torres, the Venezuelan striker turned it past Edwards for a comfortable advantage going to the break.
Thereafter, Venezuela dominated the second half but had to wait until the 77th minute to score when Klinsmann Gomez found room on top the area and curled his shot wide of a diving Edwards in goal for the 3-0 lead.
And with T&T hardly producing any resistance thereafter, substitute Edwin Britto sealed the win when he raced past his marker into the T&T defence and calmly slotted the ball past Edwards in the 94th minute.
In the earlier game on the night, Panama and Mexico played to a 1-1 stalemate.
T&T will next face Mexico Sunday while Venezuela will take on Panama.
SCORES
VENEZUELA 4 (Deivi Hernandez 22nd, Carlos Torres 44th, Klinsmann Gomez 77th, Edwin Britto 94th) v T&T 0