Trinidad and Tobago thrashed Antigua and Barbuda 8-1 yesterday to kick off their CONCACAF Beach Soccer Championship on a winning note at the Malcolm Beach Soccer Facility in Nassau, Bahamas.
It was an excellent start for the red, white and black after a training camp in Barbados where the team registered convincing wins over their hosts and Guyana and drew 3-3 with England.
T&T Head Coach Benny Astorga, speaking before yesterday’s game, said he believed his team was in the best possible shape going into the qualifiers.
“We are in a very good shape right now. We’ve had an extensive period of intense, quality preparations largely due to the efforts of the Association which did its best to get us what we needed, and now we are just ready to get the ball rolling in the Bahamas,” Astorga told TTFA Media.
“The players have worked extremely hard, they have been disciplined and dedicated and now they are all just very eager and excited to take the sand and demonstrate their capabilities,” added the former US Beach Soccer national team member.
“We’ve played a lot of emphasis on correcting our mistakes and trying to make use of our goalscoring chances from the early and not have to wait until the latter stages of the game. We are hoping to take control and settle early,” he added.
In the 2013 qualifiers which were also played in Nassau, T&T recorded two wins and two losses, finishing seventh. They advanced to the quarter-finals in 2015, completing four wins in six matches in El Salvador to finish fifth overall. The team’s rise continued in 2015 at the Lucayan Cup in Bahamas which they won, defeating Bahamas 5-3 and Mexico 5-4.
Results
Trinidad and Tobago 8 (Kevon Woodley 2, 19, 35, Chad Appoo 9, Dominic McDougall 10, 13, 14, 34) v Antigua and Barbuda 1 (Omarie Daniel 7)
GROUP C
P W D L F A Pts
Trinidad and Tobago 1 1 0 0 8 1 3
United States 1 1 0 0 8 1 3
Antigua and Barbuda 1 0 0 1 1 8 0
U.S. Virgin Islands 1 0 0 1 1 8 0