T&T ‘So­ca War­riors’ de­fen­sive frail­ties were ex­posed once more as coach Dwight Yorke’s men suf­fered a 5-0 loss to host USA in their Group D open­er of the 2025 Con­ca­caf Gold Cup at San Jose Earth­quakes Sta­di­um in San Jose on Sun­day.

The ‘So­ca War­riors’ en­tered the match on the back of a 2-1 loss to Cos­ta Ri­ca in their sec­ond-round Con­ca­caf World Cup qual­i­fi­er on Tues­day last but still ad­vanced to the fi­nal round, where they will face Ja­maica, Cu­ra­cao and Haiti in Group B, while the last out­ing against the USA end­ed in a 2-1 home win on No­vem­ber 16, 2023.

How­ev­er, the Amer­i­cans, who crushed the So­ca War­riors 6-0 in their Con­ca­caf Gold Cup group meet­ing in 2023 and al­so reg­is­tered the same re­sult as in 2019 to add to three pre­vi­ous wins – a 2-0 win in June 2007, a 3-2 win in Jan­u­ary 1998 and a 2-1 win in June 1991 – were in no mood to suf­fer such an out­come once and took the game to the vis­i­tors from the first while.

As ear­ly as the fourth minute, the USA, sev­en-time Gold Cup cham­pi­ons, threat­ened through Char­lotte FC’s Patrick Agye­mang and again in the 11th minute as the host set­tled quick­ly.

Five min­utes lat­er, Agye­mang turned provider for the Amer­i­cans’ open­er when he robbed T&T’s Alvin Jones of the ball out­side the 18-yard box and laid off a pass to an un­marked Jack McG­lynn just in­side the penal­ty area, for a right-sided float­ed cross over the re­treat­ing T&T cap­tain Kevin Moli­no, for an un­marked Ma­lik Till­man to net his first goal for the host past goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip on his near post for a 1-0 lead.

Vet­er­an Phillip, 40, play­ing his 96th match for T&T, then came to his team’s res­cue to de­ny the USA go­ing 2-0 up in the 24th minute when he raced off his line to block out a close-range at­tempt from an un­marked Diego Lu­na, who was clev­er­ly picked out in­side the right side of the 18-yard box by the live­ly McG­lynn, while an un­marked Chris Richards then head­ed over the bar from a cor­ner as the USA con­tin­ued to threat­en the T&T goal four min­utes lat­er.

The Amer­i­cans were then gift­ed their sec­ond goal of the evening by an­oth­er un­char­ac­ter­is­tic mis­take by Jones, whose in­tend­ed back pass to Phillip was cut out by the USA’s Lu­na, who raced in­to the 18-yard box be­fore cen­tring to an on­rush­ing Till­man for a sim­ple tap-in and a 2-0 lead in the 42nd minute.

A minute lat­er, Lu­na had a key hand in an­oth­er USA goal when he took on Jones down the left flank be­fore cut­ting in­side and tak­ing a right-foot­ed ef­fort which took a lucky de­flec­tion off his team­mate Agye­mang and wrong-foot­ed Phillip for a 3-0 lead which they took in­to the half-time in­ter­val, leav­ing the ‘So­ca War­riors’ coach Dwight Yorke and his team with a moun­tain to climb in the sec­ond half.

At the half, Yorke made a trio of changes with Jones, Noah Pow­der and in­ef­fec­tive Isa­iah Lee, who start­ed in the ab­sence of Levi Gar­cia, who was ex­cused for the match due to his wed­ding held in T&T yes­ter­day, all mak­ing way for An­dre Ray­mond, Dante Sealy and Nathaniel James.

How­ev­er, it was the USA who quick­ly picked up from where they left off, with Se­bastien Berhal­ter fir­ing a vol­ley wide of the tar­get in the 49th minute be­fore the live­ly Agye­mang forced a save from Phillip off his fore­head af­ter hold­ing off a chal­lenge by de­fend­er Isa­iah Gar­cia a minute lat­er.

CF Mon­tre­al’s Tyrese Spicer then cre­at­ed T&T’s best chance of the match in the 57th minute when he man­aged to get in­side of his mark­er on the left flank and raced to the by­line be­fore his whipped-in cross was just redi­rect­ed by goal­keep­er Matthew Freese, away from the on­rush­ing Sealy.

The duo of Rio Car­dines and Jo­evin Jones, play­ing in his 101st in­ter­na­tion­al, were al­so in­tro­duced by coach Yorke as he sought to fresh­en up his over­worked mid­field and de­fence by re­plac­ing Isa­iah Gar­cia and cap­tain Moli­no, but try as they did, T&T failed to breach the USA’s de­fence.

With eight min­utes left, sub­sti­tute Bren­don Aaron­son, who re­placed Diego Lu­na in the 74th minute, made it 4-0 to the USA when he eas­i­ly elud­ed de­fend­er Shel­don Bateau and beat Phillip on his first post.

James then had a half-a-chance for T&T from an acute an­gle be­fore the Amer­i­cans made it 5-0 with their sec­ond goal in three min­utes via an­oth­er sub­sti­tute, Wright, who side-stepped a vis­i­bly tired Bateau to curl home a right-foot­ed shot in­to the far cor­ner in the 84th minute as the hosts coast­ed to a com­fort­able win.

The So­ca War­riors next face Haiti at Shell En­er­gy Sta­di­um, Hous­ton, on Thurs­day.

Yes­ter­day’s Con­ca­caf Gold Cup re­sults:

Group D:

USA 5 (Ma­lik Till­man 15th, 41st, Patrick Agye­mang 44th, Bren­don Aaron­son 82nd, Ha­ji Wright 84th) vs T&T 0

T&T line-up:

1. Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 4. Shel­don Bateau, 5. Justin Gar­cia, 8. Daniel Phillip, 10. Kevin Moli­no (capt) (3. Jo­evin Jones 73rd), 13. Tyrese Spicer, 16. Alvin Jones (6.An­dre Ray­mond 46th), 19. Ajani For­tune, 23. Noah Pow­der (15. Dante Sealy 46th), 24, Isa­iah Gar­cia (17. Rio Car­dines 62nd), 26. Isa­iah Lee (9. Nathaniel James 46th)

Subs: 21. Jabari St Hillaire (GK), 22. Den­zil Smith (GK), 2. Dar­nell Hospe­da;es, 7. Stef­fen Yeates, 14. Wayne Fred­er­ick II, 18. An­rde Ram­per­sad, 20. Re­al Gill.

Coach: Dwight Yorke

USA line-up:

25. Matthew Freese (GK), 3. Chris Richards ( 12. Miles Robin­son 87th), 6. Jack McG­lynn (22. Mark Mc Ken­zie 74th), 8. Se­bas­t­ian Berhal­ter, 10.Diego Lu­na (11. Bren­don Aaron­son 74th), 13. Tim Ream, 14. Lu­ca De La Torre (21. Pax­ten Aaron­son 83rd), 16. Alexan­der Free­man, 17. Ma­lik Till­man, 18. Max Arf­sten, 24. Patrick Agye­mang (19. Ha­ji Wright 73rd)

Subs not used: 1. Matt Turn­er (GK), 26. Christo­pher Brady (GK), 2. John Tolkin, 5. Walk­er Zim­mer­man, 7. Quinn Sul­li­van, 20. Nathan Har­riel, 23. Bri­an White

Coach: Mauri­ci Pochet­ti­no