T&T's So­ca War­riors com­plet­ed their World Cup 2010 cam­paign with an en­ter­tain­ing but mean­ing­less 2-2 draw with Mex­i­co at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on Wednes­day night. With Mex­i­co al­ready qual­i­fied and the War­riors out of con­tention, the match could eas­i­ly have been a low-key af­fair, but in­stead it was played at an en­thu­si­as­tic tem­po in front of a small crowd. The re­sult left Mex­i­co with 19 points while the War­riors end­ed with six. The War­riors opened the scor­ing through Ker­ry Bap­tiste in the 32nd minute with a penal­ty af­ter Cos­ta Ri­can ref­er­ee Wal­ter En­rique Que­sa­da spot­ted an in­fringe­ment from a cor­ner and point­ed to the spot.

Bap­tiste fired his shot low to the right of an out­stretched Guiller­mo Ocha and in­to the cor­ner of the net. The home team held the lead to the half but Mex­i­co came out the more ag­gres­sive team in the sec­ond pe­ri­od. Mex­i­co sub­sti­tute En­rique Es­que­da made an in­stant im­pact when he latched on­to a through ball from fel­low sub­sti­tute Cuauhte­moc Blan­co and lashed a pow­er­ful shot in­to the roof of the net past Mar­vin Phillip to equalise in the 57th minute. The War­riors took the lead again just four min­utes lat­er, when Bap­tiste nod­ded in a close range head­er for his sec­ond goal. Mex­i­co drew lev­el again in the 64th minute when a short cor­ner re­sult­ed in a low cross find­ing Car­los Sal­ci­do gath­ered in front of the goal and a sim­ple goal.

T&T's Hay­den Tin­to showed some good ear­ly skills and set up the first chance in the 11th minute when his float­ing cross from the right found Bap­tiste at the far post but his head­er was ex­cel­lent­ly saved by Ocha div­ing ac­ro­bat­i­cal­ly to his right. Bap­tiste missed three scor­ing op­por­tu­ni­ties in a sev­en-minute span, cul­mi­nat­ing in a wide shot at goal with just Ocha to beat in the 18th. T&T coach Rus­sell Lat­apy said he was very en­cour­aged by the show­ing of his younger play­ers, say­ing he recog­nised that a num­ber of the cur­rent squad would be too old for the 2014 World Cup and the in­tro­duc­tion of younger play­ers to the set-up now was im­per­a­tive. Lat­apy, a for­mer mid­field­er for Scot­tish side Rangers, said he hoped to con­tin­ue lead­ing the T&T side be­yond the end of his cur­rent con­tract at the end of this month.

Line­ups

T&T: Mar­vin Phillip, Clyde Leon, Jake Thom­son, Robert Primus, Den­nis Lawrence, Den­sil Theobald, Trent Noel, Hay­den Tin­to, Car­los Ed­wards, Ker­ry Bap­tiste, De­von Jorsling, Kern Cu­pid.

Mex­i­co: Guiller­mo Ochoa, Jon­ny Ma­g­a­l­lon, Car­los Sal­ci­do, Hec­tor Moreno, Ger­ar­do Tor­ra­do, Is­re­al Cas­tro, Car­los Vela, Miguel Sabah, Jose An­to­nio Cas­tro, Fran­cis­co Pale­cia, An­dres Guarda­do.