Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­nior men's team made the per­fect start to their 2018 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing quest with a spir­it­ed 2-1 vic­to­ry over hosts Guatemala at the Es­ta­dio Ma­teo Flo­res on Fri­day night.

The "So­ca War­riors" were pow­ered by sec­ond half goals from Bel­gium-based mid­field­er Khaleem Hy­land and cap­tain Ken­wyne Jones to cap­ture their first three points of the CON­CA­CAF se­mi-fi­nal round group.

The vic­to­ry on the night would have left all T&T sup­port­ers with a proud feel­ing as Stephen Hart's "Red Army" bat­tled through the 94 min­utes of play, leav­ing every­thing on the pitch to come away with de­serv­ing vic­to­ry af­ter their gut­sy dis­play. The win was T&T's first in Guatemala in 26 years dat­ing back to the 1-0 shut out in 1989 by the "Strike Squad". And the goal that paved the way for the win on Fri­day had a sim­i­lar look to the one which Ker­ry Jamer­son drove home in 1989 as Hy­land drilled a right foot­er past a hap­less Paulo Mot­ta in the 67th minute.

"Some­times you can't al­ways be play­ing beau­ti­ful foot­ball. You have to roll up your sleeves and do what is nec­es­sary to come away with a re­sult. It was not pret­ty but we got the three points in a very dif­fi­cult en­vi­ron­ment and I'm hap­py with that," Hart told TTFA Me­dia af­ter the win

"I was re­al­ly pleased with the sec­ond half and the way in which we buck­led down. We en­dured rough pe­ri­od with about five or six straight cor­ners but we de­fend­ed them well. We got the goal off a nice play with Khaleem and then the sec­ond goal was just beau­ti­ful to watch with the pass from Jo­evin," Hart added.

Jones' item would turn out to be the win­ner when Jo­evin Jones float­ed a per­fect de­liv­ery in­to his path from the left and the big man clin­i­cal­ly volleyed home past Mot­ta to the dis­may of the par­ti­san Guatemalan home crowd. The goal was Jones' fourth in five out­ings for T&T, his 15th in 26 ap­pear­ances since Hart took the helm and his 22nd over­all.

Ear­li­er the first half, T&T failed to set­tle against the Guatemalans who came hot out the blocks and in­tent on jostling the 'War­riors".

Ger­son Tinoco and vet­er­an Car­los Ruiz seemed at ease in the first half and threat­ened to leave T&T trail­ing but sol­id goal­keep­ing by Jan Michael Williams kept the hosts at bay. Williams used his legs to de­ny Tinoco in the 12th minute and Ruiz test­ed the Cen­tral FC cus­to­di­an on a cou­ple of oc­ca­sions.

T&T had one look at goal, an ef­fort from mid­field­er Keron Cum­mings which sailed over bar. The vis­i­tors had not found prop­er foot­ing and would have been con­tent­ed with a 0-0 score­line at the break. But as is the case in such tough away en­coun­ters, re­silience is a key and that was proven at the end of the af­fair.

Hart in­tro­duced mid­field steel Ke­van George and nip­py winger Cordell Cato in the sec­ond half at the ex­pense of Cum­mings and Lester Pelti­er. But still it seemed to be all Guatemala and at one point, short­ly af­ter the 55th minute, the hosts won five con­sec­u­tive cor­ner kicks and had the T&T de­fense la­bor­ing. But the back­line of Radan­fah Abu Bakr, Mekeil Williams, Shel­don Bateau and Daneil Cyrus held out well to keep the op­po­nents at bay.

T&T didn't dwin­dle and un­like the 2005 squad which con­ced­ed heav­i­ly in the 5-1 loss, Hart's men came in­to their own and spoilt any plans of a Guatemalan par­ty. Sub­sti­tute Car­los Mejia pulled a goal back on a Ruiz as­sist but T&T would hold their com­po­sure in the clos­ing four min­utes of added on time to leave with max­i­mum points.

The re­sult was cer­tain­ly not an easy one for the Guatemalans to di­gest as the T&T team bus, un­der ad­vice of the Po­lice, had to re­main in­side the sta­di­um for at least 25 min­utes be­fore ex­it­ing at the risk of an­gry home fans ston­ing the team bus. The Po­lice es­cort even­tu­al­ly led the bus out through an­oth­er ex­it and safe­ly to the Vista Re­al ho­tel. The team re­turns home at 4:27 pm yes­ter­day on Co­pa Air­lines via Pana­ma City. The Unit­ed States team is al­so sched­uled to ar­rive around the same time on a char­ter.

The US trounced St Vin­cent/Grenadines 6-1 in their open­er on Fri­day night in St Louis. A dou­ble by Jozy Al­ti­dore and one each from Bob­by Wood, Ge­off Cameron and Gyasi Zardes gave the US the win af­ter the had fall­en 1-0 be­hind in the 5th minute.

In Group A, Mex­i­co won 3-0 at home against El Sal­vador on goals by An­dres Guarda­do, Hec­tor Her­rera and Car­los Vela, and Cana­da beat vis­it­ing Hon­duras 1-0 on a 38th-minute goal by Or­lan­do City's Cyle Lar­in. In Group B, Pana­ma won 2-0 at Ja­maica as Ar­man­do Coop­er and Al­ber­to Quin­tero scored, and Cos­ta Ri­ca de­feat­ed vis­it­ing Haiti 1-0 on Cris­t­ian Gam­boa's 29th-minute goal.

Team Line Ups

Trinidad and To­ba­go (4-2-3-1): 21.Jan-Michael Williams ; 5.Daneil Cyrus, 6.Radan­fah Abu Bakr, 4.Shel­don Bateau, 17.Mekeil Williams; 8.Khaleem Hy­land 14.An­dre Bou­caud; 23.Lester Pelti­er (13.Cordell Cato, 63'), 20.Keron Cum­mings (19.Ke­van George, 61'), 3.Jo­evin Jones; 9.Ken­wyne Jones (10.Willis Plaza, 84').

Subs not used 1.Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 7.Jonathan Glenn, 18.Yohance Mar­shall, 16.Justin Hoyte, 12.Car­lyle Mitchell, 15.Ne­veal Hack­shaw, 11.Trevin Cae­sar.

Coach: Stephen Hart

Guatemala (4-4-2): 12.Paula Mot­ta (GK); 4.Hamil­ton Lopez, 3.Elias Vasquez (6.Car­los Mejia, 54'), 13.Den­nis Lopez, 11.Moi­ses Her­nan­dez, 18.Ste­fano Cin­cot­ta (7.Hen­ry Lopez,74'), 15.Fredy Thomp­son, 10.Jose Con­tr­eras, 16.Mar­co Pa­pa, 9.Ger­son Tinoco (22.Mynor Lopez, 83'), 20.Car­los Ruiz (cap­tain),

Coach: Ivan Sopeg­no

Ref­er­ee: Math­ieu Bour­deau (Cana­da)