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Monday, July 21, 2025

Armstrong double-up on champs NE Stars

by

2534 days ago
20180813
Central FC’s double goal scorer Akim Armstrong celebrates his second  goal, during match day 2 of the First Citizens Cup 2018 between Central FC and MIC IT St. Ann's Rangers at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva. Central won 2-0. Photo: Allan V. Crane/CA-images

Central FC’s double goal scorer Akim Armstrong celebrates his second goal, during match day 2 of the First Citizens Cup 2018 between Central FC and MIC IT St. Ann's Rangers at the Ato Boldon Stadium, Couva. Central won 2-0. Photo: Allan V. Crane/CA-images

Allan V. Crane

For­ward Akim Arm­strong’s first-half brace proved enough to earn Cen­tral FC a com­fort­able 2-0 win over North East Stars, the reign­ing Pro League (PL) cham­pi­ons, at Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Ari­ma last night.

The Stars, less than a shad­ow of the bunch that cel­e­brat­ed the League ti­tle un­der Derek King last sea­son, fell be­hind af­ter on­ly two min­utes when Arm­strong prod­ded in a Keron Cum­mings’ cross to bel­ly the back of goal­keep­er Glen­roy Samuel’s net.

Arm­strong grabbed his sec­ond on 35 min­utes with a cool fin­ish at the back post af­ter Samuel had stretched to his left to spoon out a strike from Du­ane Muck­ette. But with Samuel’s de­fence al­most ab­sent and the ball land­ing in the path of the even­tu­al dou­ble-scor­er, Cen­tral were com­fort­ably in front 2-0.

Arm­strong, who joined Cen­tral this year from Club San­do, took his tal­ly to four goals in all do­mes­tic com­pe­ti­tions so far this sea­son for the Cou­va Sharks, snap­ping a five-game drought since scor­ing both goals in a 2-0 won over St. Ann’s Rangers in their open­ing group play of the First Cit­i­zens Cup on June 10.

Cen­tral went all the way to cel­e­brate the First Cit­i­zens Cup on Ju­ly 20 with a 4-2 penal­ty win over De­fence Force FC fol­low­ing a 2-2 draw, and to­day en­joyed a win­ning start to their 2018 PL cam­paign against their for­mer coach, Yu­goslav-born Zo­ran Vranes, who re­turned Trinidad this year as part of North East Stars’ new man­age­ment’s play­er de­vel­op­ment ap­proach.

Cen­tral was the sole ag­gres­sors through­out the match while North East Stars strug­gled to test Cou­va Sharks’ T&T in­ter­na­tion­al goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip.

Vranes’ side came clos­est to test­ing Phillip in the fourth minute when Kyle Bartholomew’s pass from the left picked out Rakim Ca­bie. A time­ly chal­lenge, how­ev­er, stopped Ca­bie in his tracks but de­fend­er Dwight Pope in­jured his thigh in the process, forc­ing Cen­tral as­sis­tant coach Walt Nor­ie­ga – care­tak­ing in ab­sence of Stern John – in­to a pre­ma­ture change with An­tho­ny Charles en­ter­ing play.

Muck­ette and Cum­mings scored their goals came from set pieces, and Do­minic Dou­glas' drilled at­tempt be­fore the break was just wide of its mark.

How­ev­er, the Cou­va Sharks con­vert their chances in the sec­ond half, most no­tably when Samuel de­nied Cum­mings at point blank in the 90th minute, get­ting a glove to the mid­field­er’s head­er off a Taryk Samp­son cross be­fore sub­sti­tute Obadele Dick­son was de­nied by the up­right on the re­bound.

Ca­bie then made a clear­ance at the goal­mouth to keep out a Muck­ette strike af­ter Cum­mings cued up his hard­work­ing mid­field part­ner in stop­page time.

North East Stars may have walked away at the fi­nal whis­tle pleased to avoid a heav­ier de­feat against a star-stud­ded Cou­va Sharks out­fit, but not with a sixth con­sec­u­tive loss from as many match­es in all com­pe­ti­tions so far this sea­son. Vranes’ bunch must now train their fo­cus on San Juan Jabloteh, whom they host at the same Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um from 4 pm on Tues­day.

Mean­while, Cen­tral FC has start­ed at the top of the stand­ings, mov­ing ahead of De­fence Force FC, 4-3 win­ners over Mor­vant Cale­do­nia Unit­ed on Fri­day night, by goal-dif­fer­ence with their fourth con­sec­u­tive win in all com­pe­ti­tions and sixth vic­to­ry from sev­en out­ings.

Cen­tral will look to an­oth­er three points against Club San­do, in what should be a tougher chal­lenge on Wednes­day from 6 pm at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um.


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