T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League clubs, AC Port-of-Spain (AC PoS) and Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC will go in­to their sec­ond and fi­nal match­es in their re­spec­tive groups in the Swiss-style Caribbean Foot­ball Union 24-team Club Shield with qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the semi­fi­nals far from cer­tain Tues­day (Ju­ly 29).

This af­ter AC PoS got a nar­row 2-1 win over Cay­man Is­lands’ Schol­ars In­ter­na­tion­al in the first match at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo on Sun­day evening while Po­lice FC was stunned by Bar­ba­di­ans Wey­mouth Wales 3-1 in the sec­ond match.

To­day from 2 pm at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, AC PoS faces de­fend­ing tour­na­ment cham­pi­ons Ar­nett Gar­dens of Ja­maica with both teams on 3 points, but the lat­ter sits sec­ond on the the group stand­ings on goal-dif­fer­ence af­ter a 4-0 de­feat of Do­mini­ca’s Dublanc FC while Mar­tinique’s Club Fran­cis­cain, win­ners in 2018, leads af­ter thump­ing An­guil­la’s Doc’s Unit­ed 6-1.

For AC PoS, strik­er Ja­heim Mc Fee came off the bench to net the win­ner in the 85th minute af­ter his team­mate Josi­ah Wil­son’s 28th minute open­er was can­celled out by Christo­pher Brown’s 48th minute equalis­er for Schol­ars In­ter­na­tion­al.

Down at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Cou­va, ti­tle-hold­ers Ar­nett Gar­dens made light work of Dublanc FC with Gio­van­ni Tay­lor open­ing the scor­ing as ear­ly as the ninth minute be­fore Shai Smith made it 2-0 three min­utes lat­er and then added an­oth­er in the 16th for his brace and a com­fort­able 3-0 ad­van­tage at the half.

In the sec­ond-half, Chan­tomai Tay­lor added a late fourth item in the 90+1 minute to seal an easy win for the Ja­maicans, and a step clos­er to the semi­fi­nals as group win­ners.

Club Fran­cis­cain al­so ran ri­ot at Cou­va with Philipe Clervil fir­ing in the go-ahead item af­ter on­ly three min­utes fol­lowed quick­ly by Math­is Pri­am a minute lat­er and Christof Jougon in the 38th to lead 3-0 at the end of the first half.

Nine min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, Syl­vanus James pulled a goal back for Doc’s Unit­ed, but that was as close as they came as John­ny Mara­jo re­stored Club Fran­cis­cain’s three-goal cush­ion in the 56th at 4-1 while Ax­el De­lor got his name on the score­sheet in the 84th be­fore Pri­am added a sec­ond from the penal­ty-spot in the 90th.

The Todd Ryan-coached Po­lice FC find it­self need­ing a mir­a­cle to stay alive in the com­pe­ti­tion af­ter a shock 3-1 loss to Bar­ba­di­ans Wey­mouth Wales in Group C and will en­ter their en­counter to­day against SC­SA Ea­gles from 4 pm need­ing a big win.

On Sun­day night at Mu­cu­rapo, An­dre Ap­ple­whaite opened the scor­ing in the third minute with a fin­ish off the line and two min­utes from the half-time in­ter­val he dou­bled his tal­ly for a 2-0 lead be­fore Kwe­si Allen struck for Po­lice FC in first half stop­page time to cut the deficit be­fore the half­time break to 2-1.

Ap­ple­whaite went from scor­ing to as­sist man, when he teed up Ro­mario Hare­wood in the 88th to dash Po­lice FC’s hopes of a late turn around, as Wey­mouth Wales sealed the three points.

Al­so in Group C, Suri­name’s SV Trans­vaal earned a 3-0 win against British Vir­gin Is­lands’ Wolues FC at Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar thanks to goals from Gior­gio Bhoi in the 26th, Al­varo Keiz­er­weerd in the 69th, and Ja­mairo Hecbert in the 90th.

And in the oth­er match at Mal­abar, All Saints Unit­ed of An­tigua and Bar­bu­da whipped SC­SA Ea­gles of Sint Maarten 3-1 with Kendukar Chal­lenger’s ef­fort tak­ing a de­flec­tion off de­fend­er Lox­ley Park­er for an own goal in the tenth minute Ti­quan Isaac made it 2-0 in the 17th minute and Ra­heem De­ter­ville added a third in the 45th be­fore Ro­mario Chin net­ted a con­so­la­tion item for SC­SA Ea­gles in the 63rd minute.

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.

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 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 T&T 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 T&T PFL Tier I club, a third-place fin­ish in 2023 af­ter spank­ing Puer­to Ri­co’s Met­ro­pol­i­tan 6-1 in their play­off.

Tues­day’s CFU Club Shield match­es

Ar­nett Gar­dens vs AC Port-of-Spain, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, 2 pm

Po­lice FC vs SC­SA Ea­gles, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, 4 pm

Club Fran­cis­cain vs Schol­ars In­ter­na­tion­al, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va 2 pm

Wey­mouth Wales vs Wolues FC, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 4 pm

Dublanc FC vs Docs Unit­ed, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, 2 pm

SV Trans­vaal vs All Saints Unit­ed, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar 4 pm