With new­ly crowned T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League (TTPFL) Tier I cham­pi­on De­fence Force and run­ner-up MIC Cen­tral FC se­cur­ing spots in the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup, and Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice FC, a Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Shield berth, the fo­cus now shifts to the bat­tle for the sec­ond spot in the lat­ter com­pe­ti­tion when fi­nal round league match­es kicks off Sat­ur­day.

The fourth spot to the Con­ca­caf tour­na­ment, and more im­por­tant­ly, the sec­ond avail­able spot to the Club Shield com­pe­ti­tion was made avail­able by CFU ear­li­er last week af­ter a let­ter was sent to the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA), in­form­ing its pres­i­dent Kieron Ed­wards of the ad­di­tion­al spot.

CFU, in its let­ter, signed by its gen­er­al sec­re­tary T&T's Ca­ma­ra David, stat­ed, “I am pleased to in­form you that the T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion has been al­lo­cat­ed an ad­di­tion­al club berth for the 2025 CFU Club Shield.

"This tem­po­rary al­lo­ca­tion will al­low the team fin­ish­ing in fourth place at the con­clu­sion of the 2024/2025 T&T Pre­mier League (TTPFL) sea­son to par­tic­i­pate in this year’s com­pe­ti­tion, along­side the team fin­ish­ing in third place.

“Please note that this ad­di­tion­al spot is spe­cif­ic to the 2025 edi­tion of the tour­na­ment and does not im­ply a per­ma­nent in­crease in the num­ber of spots al­lo­cat­ed to the TTFA. We are con­fi­dent that this op­por­tu­ni­ty will fur­ther en­cour­age healthy com­pe­ti­tion with­in your do­mes­tic league and of­fer an­oth­er de­serv­ing club the chance to com­pete at the re­gion­al lev­el."

Go­ing in­to Sat­ur­day's start of the fi­nal round of match­es, cham­pi­on De­fence Force has an unas­sail­able 59 points from 21 match­es and will look to com­plete the sea­son with an un­beat­en record when they host Prison Ser­vice Sun­day at the Ken Cooke Ground, Po­lice Bar­racks, Long Cir­cu­lar Road, St James from 7 pm.

How­ev­er, all at­ten­tion will be fo­cused on the Phase II Recre­ation Ground in La Hor­quet­ta and at the Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um where Jabloteh's clash with Club San­do, and Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain (AC PoS) meet­ing with 1976 FC Phoenix will both kick off at 5 pm.

MIC Cen­tral FC Re­boot, who faces Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers in the sec­ond match at La Hor­quet­ta tonight, is in the sec­ond spot with 43 points, while Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice, who comes up against Point Fortin Civic in the sec­ond en­counter at Ari­ma, has 42 points in the bat­tle for the sec­ond and third spots.

The youth­ful San Juan Jabloteh, un­der the su­per­vi­sion of coach­es Mar­vin Gor­don and Nigel Hen­ry, has sur­passed all ex­pec­ta­tions this sea­son led by the new­ly-crowned Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League "Play­er of the Year" Der­rel Gar­cia, fel­low SS­FL play­ers Lin­dell Sween and An­dell Fras­er as well as Eli­jah Seechan and will aim to cap off a com­mend­able cam­paign, their first af­ter tak­ing a one-year hia­tus last year, by claim­ing the fi­nal CFU Club Shield spot.

Jabloteh will en­ter their match on 38 points, just one ahead of AC PoS, who de­spite sev­er­al de­par­tures mid­way through the cam­paign in­clu­sive of Che Ben­ny, John-Paul Rochford and Du­ane Muck­ette, has mount­ed a late push and will fan­cy their chance of all points ver­sus 1976 Phoenix.

AC PoS has com­pet­ed in the past two sea­sons of the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup Shield while Jabloteh, who was the CFU Club win­ner in 2003, run­ner-up in 2006, and third in 2009, last com­pet­ed at the Con­ca­caf club lev­el in 2017.

The race to de­ter­mine the league’s top scor­er al­so comes down to the fi­nal round of match­es with De­fence Force duo Isa­iah Lea­cock and Kevin Moli­no as well as Po­lice FC’s Jo­evin Jones all locked on 16 goals each, but un­able to add to their tal­ly as they are away with the T&T So­ca War­riors squad at the Afro-Caribbean Uni­ty Cup in Eng­land, where they meet Ghana for the third spot from 7.30 am to­day.

Their ab­sence leaves the door open for them to be over­tak­en or joined at the top by the trio of Eli­jah Seechan (Jabloteh), Shack­iel Hen­ry (Club San­do), and Ty­rone Charles (Cen­tral FC) who have all net­ted 13 goals each while Gar­cia has nine to his name, the same as Kadeem Corbin of Cen­tral FC.

TTPFL Tier I Round 22 match­es

Sat­ur­day

Venue: Phase II Recre­ation Ground, La Hor­quet­ta

San Juan Jabloteh vs Club San­do, 5 pm

La Hor­quet­ta Rangers vs Cen­tral FC, 7 pm

Venue: Ari­ma Mu­nic­i­pal Sta­di­um

AC Port-of-Spain vs 1976 FC Phoenix, 5 pm

Po­lice FC vs Point Fortin Civic, 7 pm

Sun­day

Venue: Ken Cooke Ground, St James Po­lice Bar­racks

Ea­gles FC vs Cale­do­nia AIA, 5 pm

Prison Ser­vice vs De­fence Force Elite, 7 pm

Tier I stand­ings (as at May 30)

Pos Teams P W D L F A GD Pts

1 De­fence Force 21 19 2 0 77 18 59 59

2 Cen­tral FC 21 14 1 6 54 28 26 43

3 Po­lice FC 21 13 3 5 59 36 23 42

4 Jabloteh 21 11 5 5 44 30 14 38

5 AC PoS 21 10 7 4 43 26 17 37

6 Club San­do 21 9 4 8 36 22 14 31

7 Cale­do­nia AIA 21 9 3 9 34 46 -12 30

8 LH Rangers 21 4 10 7 33 36 -3 22

9 1976 Phoenix 21 4 6 11 23 41 -18 18

10 Prison Ser­vice 21 3 5 13 23 44 -21 14

11 Ea­gles FC 21 3 3 15 18 75 -57 12

12 Point Fortin Civic 21 2 1 18 16 58 -42 7

Lead­ing scor­ers

16 - Isa­iah Lea­cock (De­fence Force), Kevin Moli­no (De­fence Force), Jo­evin Jones (Po­lice)

13 - Eli­jah Seechan (Jabloteh), Shack­iel Hen­ry (Club San­do), Ty­rone Charles (Cen­tral FC)

9 - Der­rel Gar­cia (Jabloteh), Kadeem Corbin (Cen­tral FC)

8 - Kwe­si Allen, Ka­reem Fre­itas. Mick­aeel Jem Gor­don (Po­lice FC), Jean-Heim Mc Fee (Cale­do­nia AIA/AC PoS), Shaquille Bertrand (De­fence Force), Haile Beck­les (AC PoS),

7 - Ke­sean St Rose, Isa­iah Lee (La Hor­quet­ta Rangers), Jariel Arthur (FC Phoenix/Cale­do­nia AIA), Nathan Lewis (AC PoS), John-Paul Rochford (Cen­tral FC), Je­re­mi­ah Vi­dale (Prison FC)