Ja­heim Mc Fee came off the bench in the 65th minute to re­place Shack­iel Hen­ry and net­ted the win­ner as T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I's Ath­let­ic Club Port-of-Spain (AC PoS) made a win­ning start to their cam­paign in the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Shield at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain, Sun­day (Ju­ly 27).

With the scores locked at 1-1 in their Group D meet­ing with Cay­man Is­lands’ Schol­ars, Mc Fee was on spot to turn home a low right-sided cen­tre from Haile Beck­les with five min­utes left in reg­u­la­tion time to give his team all three points ahead of their sec­ond and fi­nal group match in the Swiss-style tour­na­ment against Ar­nett Gar­dens of Ja­maica from 2 pm at the same venue on Tues­day.

Josi­ah Wil­son had giv­en the Walt Nor­eiga-coached AC PoS the lead in the 28th minute, which they took in­to the half­time in­ter­val.

AC PoS con­tin­ued to dom­i­nate the match in the sec­ond half and should have dou­bled their lead in the 48th minute on­ly for the ef­fort to come back off the post and in­to play, which re­sult­ed in a coun­ter­at­tack fin­ished off nice­ly by Christo­pher Brown past goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip to stun the host team.

The match then looked head­ed for a draw un­til sub­sti­tute Mc Fee made full use of one of the nu­mer­ous chances cre­at­ed by his team to snatch all three points.

In oth­er ear­ly match­es yes­ter­day, Trans­vaal blanked Wolues 3-0, All Saints Unit­ed caged Ea­gles 3-1, and Club Fran­cis­cain tram­pled Doc's Unit­ed 6-1.

Last night, the Todd Ryan-coached Po­lice FC, third-placed Tier I fin­ish­ers, be­gan ac­tion in Group C against Wey­mouth Wales of Bar­ba­dos be­fore fac­ing the SC­SA Ea­gles of Sint Mar­tin to­mor­row at Mu­cu­rapo in a 4 pm kick-off.

At the end of the four groups of the 24-team com­pe­ti­tion, the ta­ble top­pers will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals on Fri­day, fol­lowed by the fi­nal and third-place play­off on Sun­day.

The oth­er teams in Group C are All Saints Unit­ed, SV Trans­vaal, and Wolues FC, while Group D al­so com­pris­es Club Franis­cain, Docs Unit­ed and Dublanc FC.

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 16-team 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.

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

Acad­e­mia Quin­tana, Guyana De­fence Force win open­ers

Acad­e­mia Quin­tana of Puer­to Ri­co and Guyana De­fence Force both kicked off their re­spec­tive group cam­paigns in the CFU Club Shield with con­trast­ing wins on Sat­ur­day.

At the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Acad­e­mia Quin­tana ham­mered US Vir­gin Is­lands' Rovers FC 5-0 in Group A with Joseph Mar­rero and Tomas Fer­nan­dez scor­ing first-half items be­fore the trio of Adri­an Fais­ca, Wil­fre­do Rivera and Kevin Javier added their names to the score­sheet in the sec­ond half.

Al­so in Group A, but at the Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um in Mal­abar, Aru­ba's SV Bri­tan­nia and Grena­da's Par­adise FC bat­tled to a 1-1 draw with Re­an­ge­lo Boekhoudt scor­ing in the 67th minute to sal­vage a share of the points for Bri­tan­nia af­ter Ke­ston Williams had fired Par­adise FC in­to a 35th-minute lead.

In the sec­ond match at Mal­abar, Guyana De­fence Force used goals from Col­in Nel­son in the 45th and Chris Macey in the 90+3 to blank St Paul's Unit­ed Strik­ers of St Kitts and Nevis.

At the Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic's Mo­ca FC edged AS Etoile De Ma­toury of French Guiana 1-0 thanks to an own goal four min­utes be­fore the half-time in­ter­val in Group B while in the oth­er match played, Bonaire's SV Re­al Rin­con and La Clery of St Lu­cia drew 1-1.

Sat­ur­day's (Ju­ly 26) re­sults

Group A

Acad­e­mia Quin­tana 5 (Joseph Mar­rero, Tomas Fer­nan­dez, Adri­an Fais­ca, Wil­fre­do Rivera, Kevin Javier) vs Rovers 0

Re­al Rin­con 1 (Ayr­ton Ci­cil­la 79th) vs La Clery 1 (Mer­voin St Ro­main 66th)

Group B

Guyana De­fence Force 2 (Col­in Nel­son 45th penal­ty, Chris Macey 90+3) vs St Paul's Unit­ed Strik­ers 0

SV Bri­tan­nia 1 Re­an­ge­lo Boekhoudt 67th) vs Par­adise FC 1 (Ke­ston Williams 35th)

Mo­ca FC 1 vs AS Etoile De Ma­toury

Mon­day's (Ju­ly 28) match­es

AS Capoise vs La Clery, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, 2 pm

Mo­ca FC vs Guyana De­fence Force, Lar­ry Gomes Sta­di­um, Mal­abar, 4 pm

Acad­e­mia Quin­tana vs SV Re­al Rin­con, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, 2 pm

SV Bri­tan­nia vs St Paul's Unit­ed Strik­ers, Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, 4 pm

Acad­e­my Ea­gles vs Rovers, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 2 pm

AS Etoile De Ma­toury vs Par­adise FC, Ato Boldon Sta­di­um, Cou­va, 4 pm