COUVA, Trinidad & Tobago – To more than a few fans of Trinidadian football, Central FC’s involvement in the 2015/16 Scotiabank CONCACAF Champions League (SCCL) will represent a reunion of sorts.
After all, many of the Sharks participated in the 2009/10 and the 2010/11 editions of the annual continental club competition with San Juan Jabloteh.
Although a relatively new club, Central FC has been earning honors at a remarkable rate. It was founded in July 2012 by former Trinidad & Tobago international Brent Sancho. Perhaps ahead of even the most optimistic timeline, however, it won both the 2014/15 TT Pro League and 2015 Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Championship titles within the last month.
“We have a lot of players from Jabloteh, most of the senior players come from Jabloteh, so we have a unit together,” Central attacker Jason Marcano told CONCACAF.com. “With some younger players, we’ve formalized a unit, got it together and got it right.”
In the CFU competition, which doubles as a qualifier for the SCCL, Central went undefeated in four games (3W-1D-0L), edging local-rival DirecTV W Connection 2-1 in the final on May 24. Former Jabloteh standouts Willis Plaza and Attaullah Guerra were the team’s joint-top scorers with two goals each.
“I believe in the players that we have, the quality we have,” continued Marcano, who played in nine SCCL games with Jabloteh. “We played the whole season as a unit.”
For the first time since 2011/12, Trinidad & Tobago had no representation in the SCCL last term. That absence will be remedied by the fact that Central and W Connection secured two of the Caribbean’s three berths for this season’s tournament.
“We have two Trinidad teams go to the highest level and represent the country at the end of the day,” expressed a delighted Marcano. “I’m glad for that. To me it is great. It shows that we have dominance in the Caribbean.”
What can be anticipated from Central in SCCL play? Marcano signaled that we should expect to see more of the same positives.
“We’ll try our best to keep it right and keep it together,” the 33-year-old finished.