Mark Ramdeen was de­served­ly named the “Man of the Match” af­ter lead­ing San­ta Flo­ra City FC to the ti­tle to bring the De­porti­vo Point Fortin (PF) Com­mu­ni­ty Foot­ball League (CFL) to a bit­ter­sweet end in front of a sold-out crowd at the Ma­haica Sport­ing Com­plex on Sat­ur­day night.

Ramdeen, who was lat­er named the over­all “Most Valu­able Play­er” (MVP), played a key role in get­ting San­ta Flo­ra past La Brea Unit­ed, 2-0, in a fi­nal that start­ed an hour late, and the even­tu­al win­ner played most of the sec­ond half with 10 men.

The de­cid­ing match was pushed back due to the late start of the open­ing third-placed match be­tween short-hand­ed Vance Riv­er Unit­ed and Point Ligoure Unit­ed. Vance Riv­er’s play­ers ar­rived late and played the match in its en­tire­ty with nine play­ers. How­ev­er, that had no bear­ing on the ex­cite­ment of the clash, which end­ed 6-3 in favour of Point Ligoure.

The late start did not af­fect San­ta Flo­ra as the “City” got first-half goals from Ramdeen and Sedale McLean to claim the ti­tle in the fourth edi­tion of the De­porti­vo PF league.

Ramdeen pro­duced the open­er in the 12th minute, blast­ing the ball past the goal­keep­er from a buildup ini­ti­at­ed by his cap­tain, Nathaniel Gar­cia. McLean dou­bled San­ta Flo­ra’s lead 14 min­utes lat­er, send­ing the La Brea cus­to­di­an the wrong way to score in the 26th. McLean could have put his team fur­ther ahead mo­ments lat­er but his bul­let was saved by the keep­er.

La Brea had a chance to score on a coun­ter­at­tack through Aki­no­la Gre­go­ry, but his at­tempt was stopped by the keep­er. The All­stars con­tin­ued to press for a goal and man­aged to get the ball in the back of the net from a throw-in, but their cel­e­bra­tions were cut short af­ter ref­er­ee Kwin­si Williams con­sult­ed with his lines­man, and it was ad­ju­di­cat­ed a fouled throw, so the goal was dis­al­lowed, which meant San­ta Flo­ra went in at the half with a 2-0 ad­van­tage.

On the re­sump­tion, both teams went af­ter each oth­er, La Brea try­ing to lessen its deficit while San­ta Flo­ra sought more goals but the lat­ter’s cap­tain Gar­cia was a lit­tle too ag­gres­sive on a tack­le and was shown a yel­low card for a sec­ond time, the first was in the 38th minute, re­sult­ing in a red card in the 70th.

De­spite be­ing down a play­er, San­ta Flo­ra held off La Brea, whose fur­ther at­tempts were off tar­get, as the sec­ond half re­mained goal­less. When the fi­nal whis­tle sound­ed, cap­tain Gar­cia emerged from the change room and raced back on­to the field to cel­e­brate with his team­mates, who changed at­tire, re­plac­ing their play­ing tops with t-shirts, print­ed “CFL Cham­pi­on 2025”, putting their con­fi­dence on full dis­play for their ap­pre­cia­tive fans.

San­ta Flo­ra won the first-place prize of $20,000. Run­ners-up La Brea had to set­tle for the sec­ond-placed prize of $17,000, Point Ligoure, for third place, got $15,000 and fourth-placed Vance Riv­er earned $12,000.

Lat­er on dur­ing the awards cer­e­mo­ny, each play­er and tech­ni­cal staff col­lect­ed their cham­pi­onship rings, spon­sored by the Muhammed Isa Foun­da­tion, the chal­lenge tro­phy and medals, cour­tesy El Do­ra­do Off­shore (EDO).

In oth­er in­di­vid­ual prizes hand­ed out, San­ta Flo­ra City’s Adam Pierre al­so picked up two awards, as he was recog­nised as the youth MVP and best de­fend­er.

The “Most Goals” award went to Mar­lon Phillip of La Brea All­stars and his team­mate Tequan Ro­driguez was the best mid­field­er. Ex­pe­ri­enced play­er Mar­cus Joseph of Vance Riv­er Unit­ed was named the best strik­er.

Dur­ing the cer­e­mo­ny, fall­en foot­baller Sport­ing Club Fyz­abad’s Em­manuel Adams, a sol­dier with De­fence Force, who col­lapsed while walk­ing off the field dur­ing a match and lat­er died at hos­pi­tal, was re­mem­bered. A do­na­tion was made to his wife, Shanell Sem­per-Adam.

Re­sults

Fi­nal

San­ta Flo­ra City 2 (Mark Ramdeen 16th, Sedale McLean 26th) vs La Brea Unit­ed 0. MOTM: Mark Ramdeen

Third place

Vance Riv­er Unit­ed 3 (Mar­cus Joseph 59th, 72nd, Samuel Joseph 68th) vs Point Ligoure Unit­ed 6 (Joash Baird 5th, Shaquille Dublin 11th, Akiel Vesprey 10th, Isa­iah Ja­cob 18th, 19th, 45th)

Hornour roll

Over­all MVP: Mark Ramdeem (San­ta Flo­ra City)

Youth MVP: Adam Pierre (San­ta Flo­ra City)

Most goals: Mar­lon Phillip (La Brea All­stars)

Best goal­keep­er: Daniel John­son (Point Ligoure Unit­ed)

Most dis­ci­plined team: Point Ligoure Unit­ed

Best de­fend­er: Adam Pierre (San­ta Flo­ra City)

Best mid­field­er: Tequan Ro­driguez (La Brea All­stars)

Best strik­er: Mar­cus Joseph (Vance Riv­er Unit­ed)

Coach of the Year: Cal­lum Mar­shall (La Brea All­stars)