So­ca War­riors strik­er Ja­mal Gay got the lone goal as Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League out­fit Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA edged Ja­maica's Port­more Unit­ed 1-0 in its Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Cham­pi­onship third place play-off first-leg match at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, on Mon­day night.

Cale­do­nia's win in a match which was list­ed as Port­more's home match moved the lo­cal club a step clos­er to seal­ing a sec­ond con­sec­u­tive ap­pear­ance in the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League main draw where it will join fel­low T&T Pro League club Di­recTV W Con­nec­tion and Haiti's Va­len­cia, which topped their re­spec­tive CFU Club Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fy­ing groups last month.

To­day (Wednes­day), Cale­do­nia will en­ter the sec­ond-leg match at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, from 6 pm on­ly need­ing a draw to qual­i­fy for the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League as the third CFU club while Port­more, which is with­out its top scor­er in Ri­car­do Mor­ris, must win by two clear goals to ad­vance au­to­mat­i­cal­ly.

The Mor­vant/Laven­tille club, com­ing off a 1-3 loss to W Con­nec­tion in the Dig­i­cel Pro Bowl on Fri­day at Cou­va, had ear­li­er missed a gold­en chance to go ahead in the tenth minute when Nathan Lewis raced past de­fend­ers Rosario Har­riot and Up­ston Ed­wards, and charged to­wards the goal guard­ed by Fos­ter. How­ev­er, his at­tempt­ed chip was stopped by the Ja­maican goal­keep­er be­fore be­ing cleared by a re­treat­ing de­fend­er.

The fran­tic start to the match con­tin­ued a minute lat­er when Fos­ter was forced in­to a save to keep out a Tou­s­saint free kick, while at the oth­er end Port­more's Paul Wil­son shot on tar­get from a Sue Lae Mc Calla pass was kept out by Cale­do­nia goal­keep­er Glen­roy Samuel in the 16th.But it was Cale­do­nia, sup­port­ed by two rhythm groups on the night, which land­ed the cru­cial item at the noisy sta­di­um when Gay tucked in a Tou­s­saint cross past Fos­ter for his sec­ond goal of the tour­na­ment.

Nine min­utes be­fore the in­ter­val, Cale­do­nia's Akim Arm­strong al­most dou­bled his team's ad­van­tage but his shot from an acute an­gle slammed in­to the side net­ting as his team went in 1-0 ahead at the break.Six min­utes af­ter the re-start, Tou­s­saint, play­ing his first com­pet­i­tive for more than five months, should have made it 2-0 for the host but he guid­ed his ef­fort over­bar from in­side the 18-yard box af­ter Fos­ter could on­ly pat down a blast from Lewis. In the 55th minute, Den­sill Theobald forced Fos­ter in­to a low div­ing save as Cale­do­nia pressed the vis­i­tors.

Port­more's best chance of the night came in the 60th minute via a head­er from Ma Calla off a Trevol Smith. How­ev­er, Samuel was equal to the task and tipped the ef­fort away for a cor­ner.

With 11 min­utes left in the match, Cale­do­nia was forced in­to a change when winger Ka­reem Joseph who was caus­ing a few prob­lems on the right flank had to be re­placed by Miguel Ale­jan­dro Romeo in the 79th minute, but his team was able to hang on for the de­served vic­to­ry and will go in­to to­day's en­counter as the home team and just needs a draw or a 2-1 loss to qual­i­fy.

A Port­more win by a 1-0 mar­gin will send the match in­to penal­ty kicks to de­ter­mine the third CFU Club Cham­pi­onship qual­i­fi­er for the 2013/2014 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League, while a 2-0 vic­to­ry will qual­i­fy the vis­i­tors.

Look­ing ahead to the sec­ond-leg match Cale­do­nia coach Jer­ry Moe says that his team will not be tak­ing its feet off the ped­al for tonight's sec­ond-leg match at Cou­va."We had a post-re­cov­ery ses­sion af­ter Mon­day's game, and for the play­ers who didn't play, we were on the train­ing field this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) and all of that is prepa­ra­tion for the sec­ond-leg match."With re­spect to the 1-0 win, Moe said it was a good po­si­tion to be in go­ing in­to the sec­ond-leg match but hav­ing seen the op­po­nents was quick to add that his team can't af­ford to be com­pla­cent. If they (Port­more) were play­ing in the (T&T) Pro League, they would be one of the top four teams."Last night (Mon­day) we saw a com­pact Port­more and they didn't al­low us much room. They have some good ath­let­ic play­ers and they had some chances which they didn't put away. We al­so had some scor­ing chances, apart from the goal, and in one in­stance I thought An­dre Tou­s­saint should have scored to dou­ble our ad­van­tage."

Theobald, a se­nior mem­ber of the Cale­do­nia squad added, "We got to keep fo­cused and con­tin­ue to keep our feet on the ground and work hard for the re­sults we want in this game."Re­flect­ing on Mon­day's win, Theobald stat­ed it was a very hard game for Cale­do­nia, one which they had to dig deep for the re­sult they want­ed. "Portsmore were more ag­gres­sive than our week­ly Pro League op­po­nents, but we stuck to the task and hope­ful­ly on Wednes­day (to­day) we fin­ish the job," added Theobald.So far this sea­son Cale­do­nia has re­tained the First Cit­i­zens Cup and the pres­ti­gious T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy while fin­ish­ing sec­ond in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League be­hind De­fence Force, but Theobald sees to­day's match as the most im­por­tant one for the sea­son."We know that there is a lot at stake here not just for us but for our com­mu­ni­ty and the grass­roots peo­ple we rep­re­sent."If we go to the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League we get to show­case T&T and al­so Mor­vant/Laven­tille in a more pos­i­tive light," stat­ed Theobald."We in Cale­do­nia AIA can be the tes­ti­mo­ny that good can come from with­in our com­mu­ni­ty," end­ed Theobald.

CFU/Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League qual­i­fi­er:

Mon­day's First-Leg re­sult:

Venue: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo

Cale­do­nia 1 (Ja­mal Gay 27th) vs Port­more Unit­ed 0

To­day:

Sec­ond-Leg:

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va:

Cale­do­nia AIA vs Port­more Unit­ed, 6 pm