T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) Tier I duo, Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain (AC PoS) and Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC will both be keen to get win­ning starts when they kick off their re­spec­tive group cam­paigns in the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Shield at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo Sun­day.

The Walt Nor­eiga-coached AC PoS, TTPFL Tier I win­ners in 2023 and fourth in the just-con­clud­ed sea­son, will con­test Group D and meet Cay­man Is­lands’ Schol­ars In­ter­na­tion­al SC from 5 pm while they meet Ar­nett Gar­dens of Ja­maica from 2 pm at the same venue on Tues­day.

Mean­while, the Todd Ryan-coached Po­lice FC, third-placed Tier I fin­ish­ers, be­gin ac­tion in Group C against Wey­mouth Wales of Bar­ba­dos from 7 pm be­fore fac­ing the SC­SA Ea­gles of Sint Mar­tin on Tues­day at Mu­cu­rapo in a 4 pm kick-off.

Speak­ing yes­ter­day fol­low­ing their fi­nal prac­tice ses­sions ahead of their open­ers in the 24-team tour­na­ment which is be­ing con­test­ed us­ing the Swiss-style for­mat, which will see each team play­ing two match­es apiece, with on­ly the four group win­ners ad­vanc­ing to the next stage, both Nor­eiga and Ryan stressed the im­por­tance of their teams get­ting off to a pos­i­tive start in the tour­na­ment.

Nor­eiga said, "We have pre­pared as best as we can for the tour­na­ment and all the guys need to do now is to go out and ex­e­cute what we have been work­ing on."

AC PoS is no stranger to CFU Club com­pe­ti­tions, hav­ing con­test­ed the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup in two of the past three sea­sons; how­ev­er, Nor­eiga's men have, on more than one oc­ca­sion, squan­dered win­ning po­si­tions, and are yet to se­cure a first vic­to­ry, some­thing the coach says he hopes to put right.

"We don't know much about the op­po­nents but as a group, we will ap­proach the match with re­spect for the op­po­si­tion but at the same time, with­out fear as well.

"We have the ex­pe­ri­ences of past out­ings at this lev­el, and the guys know that the game is not over un­til the fi­nal whis­tle and we need to be as pro­fes­sion­al as pos­si­ble and get the job done."

Ac­cord­ing to Nor­eiga, the team is ba­si­cal­ly the same core of play­ers who con­test­ed the 2024/2025 sea­son, in ad­di­tion to the re­turn of Che Ben­ny from his one-sea­son stint with Ja­maica's Mon­tego Bay Unit­ed, Shack­iel Hen­ry, for­mer­ly of Club San­do, and Luke Phillip from Point Fortin Civic.

Po­lice FC coach Ryan said his play­ers will need to hit the ground run­ning and go all out for vic­to­ry due to the type of com­pe­ti­tion it is.

"With this Swiss-style for­mat, you can win your two match­es and still not be cer­tain to win your group, so we will be go­ing out to play nice, at­trac­tive foot­ball, of­fen­sive foot­ball with the aim of scor­ing a lot of goals and be­ing res­olute in de­fence.

"We have seen a few videos of how our op­po­nents play and we have planned well for what they have to of­fer, and at the same time, we ex­pect they may have al­so stud­ied us as well, but we're con­fi­dent of com­ing out on top," said Ryan.

At the end of the four groups, the ta­ble top­pers will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals on Au­gust 1, fol­lowed by the fi­nal and third-place play­off on Au­gust 3.

The oth­er teams in Group C are All Saints Unit­ed, SV Trans­vaal, and Wolues FC, while Group D al­so com­pris­es Club Fran­cis­cain, Doc's Unit­ed, and Dublanc FC.

Last year, AC PoS and Po­lice rep­re­sent­ed T&T in the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup, and both will have a chance to do so once more, as at the end of the 16-team CFU Club Shield com­pe­ti­tion, the top two fin­ish­ers will qual­i­fy for the 2025 Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup, which will be con­test­ed from Au­gust to De­cem­ber.

So far, T&T Pre­mier League cham­pi­ons De­fence Force, who lift­ed the Caribbean Con­ca­caf Club ti­tle back in 2001, will con­test Group B with last year’s tour­na­ment run­ner-up, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Cibao FC; Ja­maica Wray & Nephew Pre­mier League two-time reign­ing cham­pi­on Cav­a­lier FC, who are al­so the two-time Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup win­ners; Hait­ian cham­pi­ons Ju­ven­tus de Cayes; and the CFU Club Shield run­ner-up.

For De­fence Force, which cap­tured its record 24th na­tion­al league ti­tle ear­li­er this month, it marks a re­turn to the Caribbean Cup com­pe­ti­tion for the first time since 2023, af­ter they con­test­ed the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Shield com­pe­ti­tion last year, a qual­i­fi­er to the Caribbean Cup, but bowed out at the round-of-16 hur­dle.

In Group A, two-time Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club cham­pi­ons Cen­tral FC (2015 & 2016), who last com­pet­ed at the Con­ca­caf lev­el in 2018 but qual­i­fied as the run­ner-up of the 2024/2025 T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I com­pe­ti­tion, were drawn in Group A along­side Ja­maica Wray & Nephew Pre­mier League run­ner-up Mount Pleas­ant Foot­ball Acad­e­my, Suri­name’s SV Robin­hood, the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s O&M FC and the even­tu­al CFU Club Shield cham­pi­on, while in Group B,

Last Au­gust, Ar­nett Gar­dens got a 1-0 win over An­tigua’s Grenades FC to clinch the CFU Club Shield crown.

Suri­name’s SV Robin­hood has won the most CFU Club Shield ti­tles, two, in 2019 and 2023, beat­ing Mar­tinique’s Club Fran­cis­cain (1-0) and Gold­en Li­on (5-1) in the ti­tle match­es, re­spec­tive­ly.

Club San­do had the best fi­nal of a TTPFL Tier I club, a third-place fin­ish in 2023 af­ter spank­ing Puer­to Ri­co’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan 6-1 in their play­off.

To­day’s match­es

Group C & D

Venue: Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo

Schol­ars In­ter­na­tion­al SC vs AC Port-of-Spain, 5 pm

Po­lice FC vs Wey­mouth Wales, 7 pm

Group C

Venue: Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Cou­va

SV Trans­vaal vs Walues, 2 pm

All Saints Unit­ed FC vs SC­SA Ea­gles, 4 pm

Group D

Venue: Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va

Club Fran­cis­cain vs Docs Unit­ed, 5 pm

Ar­nett Gar­dens vs Dublanc FC, 7 pm