Jiair Nanton scored a first-half double as Trinidad and Tobago Under-14 footballers secured a bittersweet come-from-behind 4-1 win over French Guiana in their must-win final round-robin match in Tier I Group B of the Caribbean Football Union Challenge Series at Cap Cana Sports City, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, yesterday.
However, despite the victory, the first in three matches, T&T still bowed out of the tournament after ending in the third spot in the four-team group due to an inferior goal difference to Puerto Rico, who ended as runner-up.
Needing a big win to have any chance of advancing, the young Soca Warriors’ task was made much more difficult when
Railey Berg Jean Louis guided home the opener for French Guiana in the fourth minute off a right-sided cross.
However, ten minutes later, Nanton, one of Fatima College’s seven players in the team, fired the T&T level before fellow striker Jade Correia put T&T ahead for the first time in the contest in the 27th when his stooping header was adjudged to have crossed the line by the officials.
One minute later, an unmarked Nanton netted his second of the match and his third in two matches for a comfortable 3-1 lead at the half.
Nine minutes into the second half, Zidan Tinto, the son of former national winger Hayden Tinto, was put through on goal at the top of the 18-yard box and made no mistake with a right-footed finish past goalkeeper Yaric Ravin to extend T&T’s lead to 4-1, after which both teams failed to add to their tally.
With the win, coach Randolph Boyce’s team ended with four points from three matches, the same as Puerto Rico.
However, while T&T ended with a zero goal difference, the Puerto Ricans ended with a plus-one goal difference after they eked out a 1-0 win over Haiti in the other group match to close out the round-robin phase.
Despite the defeat, Haiti, winners of their first two matches over French Guiana (5-2) and T&T (4-1), finished top of the table with six points, with French Guiana bottom of the four-team table with three points after their 1-0 victory on match day two over Puerto Rico.
Head Coach Randolph Boyce, speaking after the match, said the players went into the French Guiana match knowing exactly what was required in terms of goal difference.
“Today we basically set them some KPIs in terms of what we looked at in the group, and we set a target in terms of how much we probably needed to score to be able to get into the second round,” Boyce said.
“For us, it would have been like five or six goals. We conceded one, so we had to add another one to it. We started off nicely in terms of chasing down the target, and we fell short of the target.”
“At the time, we were hoping it would still be enough to get us through to the next round based on the other results. We had to depend on the Dominican Republic beating Bermuda by two clear goals.”
For Boyce, however, the tournament was always about much more than simply whether T&T advanced.
He said one of the biggest areas of focus throughout the competition was helping the players understand their own performances and make better decisions on the field.
“We kept motivating them and encouraging them about the positive things that they have been doing,” Boyce said.
“We had the opportunity to review the games back on the television, rewind the game, pause it, and point out the positives and the negatives, and they were taking it in good light.
“Now they had an opportunity to actually see it for themselves because sometimes when you are telling them something, they tend to say, ‘Nah, that wasn’t me.’ So now they had the opportunity to see for themselves.”
Looking ahead, Boyce, the coach of St. Benedict’s College, identified decision-making as one of the major areas in which the group must continue to improve.
“The biggest area where we need to improve is decision-making, knowing our options and which one of the options is the better one to pick at that point in time,” he said.
Reflecting on the team’s campaign, Boyce described the tournament as a positive experience, even though he understands that many supporters will naturally judge the team by wins, losses, and draws.
He said, ““I think the tournament is a plus. As a country, we tend to look at win, loss, and draw, but the format of the competition by CFU and FIFA is more developmental.”
One feature he particularly welcomed was the tournament regulation, which requires every fit player to receive a minimum amount of playing time.
“One of the things people don’t know much about is how they structure the tournament, where everybody has to play 70 minutes,” Boyce explained.
“Each player must complete 70 minutes. Otherwise, you may be disqualified, maybe fined points or maybe stripped, depending on the CFU committee and the decision they make, once the player is healthy and not injured.
The Tier I semifinals now take place on Friday, August 21, with the best group winner, Jamaica, meeting the best second-place team from the three groups, St. Kitts/Nevis, which they defeated 4-0 in round-robin pool play, while the second- and third-best group winners, Haiti and Dominican Republic, clash in the other semifinal.
When the tournament was last played in T&T in 2024, Jamaica defeated French Guiana 7-1, with T&T bowing out at the semifinal stage after a 4-3 loss to the French-speaking nation at the Dwight York Stadium in Bacolet, Tobago.
In the Tier II semifinals, the best group winner faces the fourth-best group winner, while the second- and third-best group winners meet in the other.
Final standings
Group A
Tier I
Teams P W D L F A Pts
Dominican Republic 3 2 1 0 8 2 7
Bermuda 3 1 2 0 3 1 5
Barbados 3 0 2 1 3 4 2
Martinique 3 0 1 2 1 8 1
Group B
Haiti 3 2 0 1 9 4 6
Puerto Rico 3 1 1 1 2 2 4
T&T 3 1 1 1 6 6 4
French Guiana 3 1 0 2 4 9 3
Group C
Jamaica 3 3 0 0 7 0 9
St Kitts/Nevis 3 2 0 1 7 8 6
Aruba 3 0 1 2 3 5 1
Curacao 3 0 1 2 3 7 1
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