Cu­ra­cao hand­ed the T&T So­ca War­riors their first de­feat of the group stage in im­pres­sive fash­ion be­hind a 5-3 tri­umph at the Ergilio Ha­to Sta­di­um in Willem­stad, Cu­ra­cao as group-stage ac­tion con­clud­ed in the Con­ca­caf Na­tions League ‘A’ Di­vi­sion match on Tues­day night.

It was an ide­al start for the win­less Cu­ra­cao out­fit, who took a 1-0 lead in the 7th minute when a long ball was played up to Range­lo Jan­ga, and the ex­pe­ri­enced strik­er fin­ished with aplomb past T&T goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith.

Cu­ra­cao were hun­gry for more and they dou­bled the lead to 2-0 in the 12th when Ken­ji Gorre found God­fried Roe­mer­a­toe, who fired in­to the net past Smith.

Cu­ra­cao’s at­tack was un­yield­ing, and a hard run from Gorre in the 54th end­ed in a foul in the T&T area and a penal­ty kick. Gorre stepped up and eas­i­ly con­vert­ed from the spot, ex­tend­ing the Cu­ra­cao ad­van­tage to 3-0.

The War­riors were fi­nal­ly able to pull back a goal back in the 68th minute as Ryan Telfer found Re­on Moore with a cross from the right wing and Moore fin­ished to make it 3-1.

It was T&T with the mo­men­tum now and sud­den­ly it was 3-2 in the 74th minute when a re­bound fell for Kris­t­ian Lee-Him to latch on­to and fire in­to goal.

Cu­ra­cao had a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­store the two-goal ad­van­tage from the penal­ty spot in the 75th af­ter a T&T hand­ball, on­ly to see Smith save Bran­d­ley Kuwas’ penal­ty. But three min­utes lat­er, it was 4-2 via the penal­ty spot af­ter a foul in the area. This time Jun­in­ho Ba­cu­na stroked it in­to the net for Cu­ra­cao.

Cu­ra­cao’s three-goal lead was then re­stored in the 81st when Roshon Van Ei­j­ma’s head­er hit the cross­bar, but Jan­ga was there to head in the re­bound to make it 5-2.

Their chances at win­ning the group were fad­ing away, but T&T want­ed to make sure they held on­to the sec­ond spot, and they made it a 5-3 fi­nal score­line in the 86th when a free kick was played in front of the Cu­ra­cao goal and Ka­reem Moses poked home the loose ball.

The re­sult means T&T will now face the US in the open­ing leg of the home and away tie in Austin, Texas on No­vem­ber 16, be­fore play­ing at home at a venue to be an­nounced on No­vem­ber 20.

The win­ner ad­vances to the semi­fi­nals of the Na­tions League as well as the 2024 Co­pa Amer­i­ca, while the losers of the tie will have a sec­ond op­por­tu­ni­ty at Co­pa Amer­i­ca qual­i­fi­ca­tion in the play­off against an­oth­er quar­ter-fi­nal los­er in March 2024.

The four Quar­ter­fi­nal pair­ings are as fol­lows: QF1: Cos­ta Ri­ca (4) vs Pana­ma (Best group win­ner)QF2: Cana­da (3) vs Ja­maica (Next group win­ner)QF3: Unit­ed States (2) vs Trinidad and To­ba­go (Best run­ners-up)QF4: Mex­i­co (1) vs Hon­duras (Next run­ners-up)

Af­ter the match­es played in the Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber FI­FA Match Win­dows, the CNL League A Group Stage stand­ings are as fol­lows:

(See page 46)

Group A

.1 Pana­ma (10 pts, +7 gd) – ad­vances to Quar­ter­fi­nals

2. T&T (9 pts, +1 gd) – ad­vances to Quar­ter­fi­nals

3. Mar­tinique (7 pts, -1 gd)

4. Guatemala (4 pts, -2 gd)

5. Cu­ra­cao (3 pts, -1 gd) – rel­e­gat­ed to League B

6. El Sal­vador (1 pts, -4 gd) – rel­e­gat­ed to League B

Group B

Ja­maica (10 pts, +5 gd) – ad­vances to Quar­ter­fi­nals

Hon­duras (7 pts, +7 gd) – ad­vances to Quar­ter­fi­nals

Suri­name (5 pts, +3 gd)

Cu­ba (5 pts, -3 gd)

Haiti (3 pts, -1 gd) – rel­e­gat­ed to League B

Grena­da (1 pts, -11 gd) – rel­e­gat­ed to League B

As pre­vi­ous­ly an­nounced and per the com­pe­ti­tion reg­u­la­tions, to de­ter­mine the Quar­ter­fi­nal pair­ings the four pre-seed­ed na­tions have been ranked ac­cord­ing to the Con­ca­caf Rank­ings and the group win­ners and run­ners-up based on the num­ber of points they ac­cu­mu­lat­ed dur­ing the Group Stage.

Pre-seed­ed na­tions rank­ing (based on the Con­ca­caf Rank­ings)

Mex­i­co

Unit­ed States

Cana­da

Cos­ta Ri­ca

Group win­ners rank­ing (based on the Group Stage re­sults)

Pana­ma (10 pts, +7 gd)

Ja­maica (10 pts, +5 gd)

Group run­ners-up rank­ing (based on the Group Stage re­sults)

T&T (9 pts, +1 gd)

Hon­duras (7 pts, +7 gd)

The sched­ule for the Quar­ter­fi­nals is as fol­lows, with the home team for each match list­ed first (per the com­pe­ti­tion reg­u­la­tions, the four pre-seed­ed fed­er­a­tions, Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Mex­i­co, and the Unit­ed States, them­selves had the op­por­tu­ni­ty to de­cide whether they would play first at home or away.):

Thurs­day, No­vem­ber 16, 2023

Unit­ed States vs T&T

Cos­ta Ri­ca vs Pana­ma

Fri­day, No­vem­ber 17, 2023

Ja­maica vs Cana­da

Hon­duras vs Mex­i­co

Mon­day, No­vem­ber 20, 2023

T&T vs Unit­ed States

Pana­ma vs Cos­ta Ri­ca

Tues­day, No­vem­ber 21, 2023

Cana­da vs Ja­maica

Mex­i­co vs Hon­duras