T&T De­fence Force Tier I line-up will hope to con­clude the 2024/2025 do­mes­tic sea­son with an un­prece­dent­ed un­beat­en record when they face off against their De­fence Force Tier II club­mates in the first-ever same club First Cit­i­zens Cup Fi­nal at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain Thurs­day night from 7 pm.

On Wednes­day at the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, De­fence Force Tier I squad, win­ners of the T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League crown with an un­beat­en record in 20 match­es this sea­son, de­feat­ed Tier II out­fit, MIC Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed 3-0 with goals from Je­lani Pe­ters (sixth), Re­on Moore (52nd) and Dar­ius Ol­livier­ra (54th).

This af­ter, De­fence Force Tier II' stunned Tier I third-placed league fin­ish­ers Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC 3-2 with Dwight Quin­tero head­ing home a late win­ner.

Ear­li­er on Po­lice took the lead through vet­er­an de­fend­er Eli­jah Bel­grave in the 27th minute but Shaquille Hold­er quick­ly drew De­fence Force Tier II lev­el.

Five min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val, Kwe­si Allen re­stored Po­lice FC's lead at 2-1, but Hold­er net­ted again in the 84th to get his team lev­el af­ter some near missed to put the game away by Po­lice at the oth­er end, be­fore Quin­tero's de­ci­sive strike, five min­utes in­to time added-on.

Pri­or to their semi­fi­nals vic­to­ries, the De­fence Force Tier I line-up, yet al­low a goal in the tour­na­ment, hav­ing blast­ed Evo­lu­tion FC 6-0 in the round-of-32; 2023 fi­nal­ist Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain 3-0 in the round-of-16; and Club San­do 1-0 in the quar­ter­fi­nals be­fore dis­miss­ing Matu­ra Re­Unit­ed.

On the oth­er­hand, De­fence Force Tier II be­gan with a 3-1 penal­ty kicks tri­umph over Tier I's 1976 FC Phoenix af­ter a 1-1 draw which was fol­lowed by 2-0 beat­ing of San Juan Jabloteh and Pris­ons Ser­vice FC 3-1 in the last-eight be­fore se­cur­ing a fourth Tier I scalp, Po­lice FC in the fi­nal-four prov­ing there are not afraid of go­ing up against the top clubs in the do­mes­tic game.

Tonight, though, five-time win­ners and run­ners-up De­fence Force Tier I line-up un­der the guid­ance of first-year team coach and for­mer So­ca War­riors World Cup mid­field­er Den­sill Theobald will be hop­ing o avoid be­com­ing an­oth­er vic­tim of the tour­na­ment's 'gi­ant-killers' and clinch a third straight lien on the First Cit­i­zens Cup which car­ries a first prize of $100,000 for the win­ners' and $50,000 to the run­ner-up.

How­ev­er, the com­pe­ti­tion de­cider will al­so see the un­usu­al sce­nario of cen­tral de­fend­er Ja­mali Gar­cia who cap­tained the De­fence Force Tier I line-up to their back-to-back tri­umphs in the tour­na­ment's last two stag­ings, seek­ing a his­toric third vic­to­ry, this time as cap­tain of the Tier II squad.

Speak­ing ahead of the match, Theobald first not­ed that he was very hap­py for the Tier II team in terms of what they have ac­com­plished thus far in their sea­son, and what they have achieved in the First Cit­i­zens Cup so far.

"How­ev­er, come Thurs­day we want to show to our or­gan­i­sa­tion and to the pub­lic while we are Tier I and they are Tier II and we will be com­ing all gun's blaz­ing," said Theobald.

For the fi­nal, De­fence Force will be with­out goal­keep­er Jabari St Hillaire, de­fend­ers Isa­iah Gar­cia and Justin Gar­cia, mid­field­ers Kevin Moli­no and Kai­him Thomas, and strik­er Isa­iah Lea­cock, all ab­sent through their par­tic­i­pa­tion at the 2025 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup with the T&T So­ca War­riors.

For­mer play­er, De­vorn Jorsling, now as­sis­tant coach to Theobald boast­ed he be­lieves it will be a mis­match.

"Most of the sup­port­ers would lean to­wards the Tier II team, and they too will be con­fi­dent as they have some qual­i­ty ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers and some promis­ing young play­ers.

"But, at the same time we have been un­de­feat­ed for a rea­son and come on Thurs­day (to­day), it will chalk and cheese, and I don't think it will be a match, and the or­gan­is­ers can hand the tro­phy to the Tier I guys'," Jorsling boast­ed.

Fa­ti­ma Col­lege mid­field­er, Ca­den Tre­strail in his first sea­son with the De­fence Force Tier II squad spoke brave­ly of his team's in­tent to take down their more es­tab­lished peers say­ing, "I have noth­ing to tell any­body. Thurs­day the foot­ball will talk. All the small talk is not nec­es­sary and they will see who comes out on top."

A con­fi­dent Gar­cia added, "We know it's go­ing to be a test for us, know­ing that they are un­beat­en for the sea­son, and I must say ku­dos to them. But we are con­fi­dent that we can be the on­ly team to de­feat them.

"I feel good about this be­cause hav­ing led the Tier I team for the last two sea­sons and we came out vic­to­ri­ous with the Cup it will be an ho­n­our for me to now lead the Tier II to the Cup and beat­ing the Tier I team to get it."

Tier II coach Kelshall Alexan­der was al­so qui­et­ly con­fi­dent in his team's chances and said he ex­pect­ed the match to be like any oth­er fi­nal.

"I ex­pect a com­pet­i­tive and in­tense fi­nal and it has noth­ing to do with sol­diers play­ing against each oth­er.

"We are go­ing out to give 150 per cent and the guys are ready and rar­ing to go."

Alexan­der added, "We have noth­ing to lose go­ing in­to this match, we are se­mi-pro­fes­sion­als as com­pared to our Tier I club­mates who are full pro­fes­sion­al, so the pres­sure I be­lieve is on them, and the pres­sure mots times does burst pipe, so my guys are com­ing to en­ter­tain and play to win."