Nigel Si­mon

Winger Ka­reem "Tiny" Joseph came up big for Neal & Massy Cale­do­nia AIA as his dou­ble sealed a 2-1 come-from-be­hind win over T&TEC in the Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League First Cit­i­zens Cup Fi­nal on Fri­day.This was in the fea­ture match of a dou­ble-head­er played be­fore a vo­cal crowd of close to 4,000 spec­ta­tors at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.In the night's open­er, the Pro League Coach­es con­tin­ued its dom­i­nance of the Me­dia All Stars with a 5-2 win.How­ev­er, all eyes were fo­cused on the first fi­nal of the 2011/2012 sea­son where debu­tants T&TEC and two-time beat­en fi­nal­ist Cale­do­nia AIA went in search of the $80,000 win­ners' cheque and crys­tal glass First Cit­i­zens tro­phy.The "Elec­tric­i­ty Boys" of T&TEC buoyed by their 4-3 penal­ty-kicks win over six-time win­ner W Con­nec­tion af­ter a 1-1 draw in their semi­fi­nal had boast­ed pri­or to kick­off they would at­tack from the first whis­tle.And back by hun­dreds of sup­port­ers decked in their yel­low and ac­com­pa­nied by its rhythm sec­tion, the Dex­ter Cyrus-coached unit took a 1-0 lead in the 15th minute through Sylvester Tees­dale af­ter Cale­do­nia goal­keep­er Zane Cok­er failed to hold on­to a low shot off a free-kick set piece by na­tion­al mid­field­er An­drei Pacheco.

The ball was quick­ly gath­ered by T&TEC strik­er Ker­lon Fer­gu­son, who then cen­tred for an un­marked Tees­dale to net the open­er.How­ev­er, 11 min­utes lat­er the "Stal­lions" as Cale­do­nia are known lev­eled when Joseph picked up a pass just on the edge of the right side of the 18-yard box and un­leashed a pow­er­ful right foot­er in­to the roof of the net past T&TEC cus­to­di­an Aki­ni Adams.Mic­ah Lewis then wast­ed a gold­en chance to put Cale­do­nia ahead nine min­utes lat­er when he fired straight at the feet of Cok­er af­ter be­ing put through on the right side by his old­er broth­er Meke­si Lewis to leave both teams lev­el at the half.The sec­ond-half start­ed in some­what weird with the match ref­er­ee be­ing the first sub­sti­tu­tion as fourth of­fi­cial Michael Ra­goonath who grabbed in­ter­na­tion­al spot­light dur­ing a 2002 FI­FA World Cup match when he ruled out a Fer­nan­do Mori­entes goal for Spain ver­sus host South Ko­rea re­placed orig­i­nal match ref­er­ee Neil Brizan who ag­gra­vat­ed an in­jury and could not con­tin­ue.

De­spite that, T&TEC be­gan live­ly and had the first chance of the half with the live­ly Pacheco test­ing Cok­er with a left foot­ed free-kick in the 57th minute.How­ev­er, the Cale­do­nia goal­keep­er was equal to the task and pushed it away for a cor­ner.It seemed a mat­ter of time be­fore a goal would come at ei­ther end of the field as both team con­tin­ued to play free-flow­ing foot­ball.And in the 65th minute, Joseph scored what turned out to be the even­tu­al match win­ner for his team from the penal­ty-spot af­ter the younger Lewis went to ground in­side the area af­ter be­ing tripped by Pacheco and as­sis­tant ref­er­ee Dion Neil sig­naled the de­ci­sion ear­ly which was con­firmed by Ra­goonath.Cale­do­nia coach Ja­maal Shabazz in­tro­duced the speedy na­tion­al Un­der-23 strik­er Trevin Cae­sar for Meke­si Lewis as he seek to wrap up the match and with­in min­utes of his in­tro­duc­tion the burly To­bag­on­ian forced a save from Adams on his near post af­ter rac­ing down the right side of the 18-yard box.

At the oth­er end, T&TEC which was with­out a few play­ers due to in­jury in­tro­duced Bevon Lewis for Fer­gu­son in the 78th minute and he al­most pulled his team lev­el with a close range head­er from a Tees­dale cor­ner while he al­so whipped in a left foot­ed ball across the six-yard box, but luck­i­ly for Cok­er and Cale­do­nia, Daniel Gar­cia, an­oth­er T&TEC sub­sti­tute failed to con­nect as his team had to set­tle for the $20,000 run­ner-up prize and sil­ver medals.The "Stal­lions", on the oth­er­hand made it third time lucky af­ter end­ing as run­ner-up to W Con­nec­tion in both the 2001 and 2007 fi­nal con­test­ed at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la. Cale­do­nia al­so be­comes on­ly the fifth club to cap­ture the ti­tle join­ing W Con­nec­tion (2001, 2004-2008), Adams' Con­struc­tion San Juan Jabloteh (2000 & 2003), De­fence Force (2002 & 2009) and bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic which won last year, but opt­ed of of this year's T&T Pro League pri­or to the start of the sea­son.

Re­sults

Fri­day's First Cit­i­zens Cup

Fi­nal

Cale­do­nia 2 (Ka­reem Josepg 26th, 65th pen) vs

T&TEC FC 1 (Sylvester Tees­dale 15th)

Teams

T&TEC

Aki­ni Adams (GK), Kern Pe­ters(capt.), An­tho­ny Nor­ie­ga, Corneal Thomas, Ro­mauld Aguillera, Sylvester Tees­dale, Vur­lon Mills(Daniel Gar­cia 58th), An­drei Pacheco(Bevon Bass 72nd), Ker­lon Fer­gu­son(Bevon Lewis 78th), Kelvin Mod­este, Akeem Adams

Coach: Dex­ter Cyrus

Cale­do­nia AIA:

Zane Cok­er(gk)(yel­low card 93rd),Stephan David(capt.), Nu­ru Ab­dul­lah Muham­mad, David At­i­ba Charles (yel­low card 80th), Bur­ton Shel­don Em­manuel, Mic­ah Lewis (Ab­dal­lah Phillip 83rd), Akim Arm­strong, Ka­reem Joseph, Meke­si Lewis (Trevin Cae­sar 63rd), Tray­on Bobb, Ja­mal Gay(Key­on Ed­wards 76th)

Coach: Ja­maal Shabazz.

Most Valu­able Play­er

Ka­reem Joseph (Cale­do­nia AIA) - $

Most Goals

Hughton Hec­tor, Jer­rel Brit­to (W Con­nec­tion), Ja­mal Gay, Ka­reem Joseph (Cale­do­nia), Willis Plaza (San Juan Jabloteh).