Two-time de­fend­ing cham­pi­on De­fence Force I and its T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier II team­mates will be hop­ing to set up a fi­nals meet­ing when they go in­to First Cit­i­zens Cup semi­fi­nal match­es at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um in Bal­main, Cou­va Wednes­day from 6 pm.

In the first semi­fi­nal, De­fence Force Tier II squad, run-away lead­ers of the Tier II Group Two stand­ings to qual­i­fy for the ‘Big Eight’, comes up against T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I third-placed fin­ish­ers Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC be­fore the Den­sill Theobald-coached new­ly crowned T&T Pre­mier League Tier I cham­pi­ons, De­fence Force Elite, face Tier II out­fit MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed in the oth­er.

Last month in the quar­ter­fi­nals at the same Cou­va venue, De­fence Force Elite mi­nus sev­en play­ers on in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty with the So­ca War­riors bat­tled past Club San­do FC 1-0, with Shaquille Bertrand net­ting the de­ci­sive item in the tenth minute while

De­fence Force Tier II stunned Tier I club Prison Ser­vice FC 3-1, with all four goals com­ing in the sec­ond half.

Two min­utes in­to the sec­ond half, teenage winger Theo Crovador fired De­fence Force II in­to the lead, but in the 55th minute Per­ry Par­ris drew Prison Ser­vice lev­el.

With the match seem­ing head­ed for penal­ty kicks, Dwight Quin­tero re­stored the lead for De­fence Force II in the 88th minute, and three min­utes in­to time added on at the end of reg­u­la­tion time, Mark Grif­fith sealed the win with his team’s third item to set up a semi­fi­nal with Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC.

At the Phase II La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground, in La Hor­quet­ta, Kwame Hazel scored in the 19th minute, and An­dre Al­fred in the 68th, to lead Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed past Pe­tit Val­ley/Diego Mar­tin Unit­ed, who got a late item from Joshua No­ray in the 80th.

In the sec­ond match, Ka­reem ‘Scoobee’ Fre­itas made it three goals in his last two match­es, with a dou­ble in Po­lice FC’s 3-0 de­feat of San Fer­nan­do Gi­ants.

Fre­itas opened the scor­ing in the 18th minute for a 1-0 half-time ad­van­tage be­fore he com­plet­ed his dou­ble in the 62nd, fol­lowed by Jabari Mitchell’s 85th-minute penal­ty kick.

For tonight’s semi­fi­nal, De­fence Force Tier I will be with­out the ser­vices of goal­keep­er Jabari St Hillaire, de­fend­er Isa­iah Gar­cia, mid­field­er Kevin Moli­no and strik­er Isa­iah Lea­cock, all away on in­ter­na­tion­al du­ty with T&T, while Po­lice FC will be with­out mid­field­er Jo­evin Jones for their en­counter due to the same rea­son.

Speak­ing on the eve of his team’s match, Theobald ad­mit­ted that the quar­tet of play­ers on na­tion­al du­ty will no doubt leave a void in the team, but at the same time it pro­vides a chance for oth­ers to step up.

He said, “I have a squad of play­ers from one to 24, and I’m con­fi­dent that when some play­ers are ab­sent, this time due to na­tion­al team du­ty, the oth­er guys can come in and do a re­li­able job.”

“Of course, play­ers like Moli­no, Gar­cia, Lea­cock and St Hillaire bring a lev­el of qual­i­ty to the team, but it’s a chance for the oth­er guys to step up and be counter.

“We have al­ready won one ti­tle, and we want to fin­ish off the sea­son by adding the First Cit­i­zens Cup as well, and to do that, we need to win the next two match­es,’ de­clared Theobald.

The semi­fi­nal win­ners will meet in the fi­nal to be played on a date yet to be de­ter­mined, with the cham­pi­on team col­lect­ing $100,000 and the run­ners-up $50,000.