T&T's Under-20s beaten again, this time by Suriname

The re­sult fol­lows Mon­day's heart-wrench­ing 6-1 loss to host and de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Unit­ed States, which es­sen­tial­ly killed all chances T&T may have had of tak­ing the top spot in the group. Af­ter­wards T&T cap­tain John Paul Rochford said his team failed to demon­strate the qual­i­ties need­ed to bounce back from the loss to the US.

“The game tonight we didn’t get the re­sult we want­ed. We want­ed the vic­to­ry to show peo­ple that we had the strength and abil­i­ty to bounce back from the de­feat we suf­fered on Mon­day. That was not the case. Some of the play­ers in the camp didn’t have it, the vibes were not the same as it usu­al­ly would be be­fore a game, and as a team on a whole, we weren’t our­selves," Rochford said.

He added, "I be­lieve that was a key part to play in the de­feat to­day. Let’s not for­get that we didn’t have the nec­es­sary prepa­ra­tions that we need­ed. Know­ing the play­ers on the team, for some of them, this is the first time play­ing an in­ter­na­tion­al tour­na­ment so the ex­pe­ri­ence is a fresh one. They don’t know what the feel­ing is like to suf­fer a loss, then play two days af­ter to try and come back and fight again."

Ac­cord­ing to the T&T skip­per, "It is a first time ex­pe­ri­ence for them where­as for some of us we un­der­stand that it takes a lot to bounce back from a 6-1 de­feat. As one of the key play­ers in the team, I will try my best to fix it as best as I can, talk to play­ers, bring pos­i­tiv­i­ty and get us on a high go­ing in­to the fi­nal game on Fri­day.”

Coach Rus­sell Lat­apy did not have the ser­vices of mid­field­er Ju­dah Gar­cia due to a dou­ble yel­low card sus­pen­sion, and he didn’t see the oth­er play­ers rise to the call.

“It was a dif­fi­cult game to pick our­selves up af­ter the USA game. There were a lot of dis­ap­point­ed young men in that dress­ing room af­ter the 6-1 loss. Just at the start tonight we warned them about be­ing flat. We knew that we need­ed high en­er­gy lev­els and we need­ed to have bet­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion. Cred­it to Suri­name as I thought they played well but I thought it was be­cause of the mis­takes we made that re­al­ly cost us the game."

FULL-TIME: Trinidad and Tobago 0 vs Suriname 2 (Shaquille Cairo 29', Brian Elshot 70').

Teams

Trinidad and Tobago: 1.Denzil Smith; 4.Jerrin Jackie, 16.Luke Singh, 2.Mikel Mieres, 3.Derron John; 8.Jabarry Francis (9.Jaydon Prowell 71), 14.Ethan Bonaparte (19.Shaqkeem Joseph 46); 7.Mark Ramdeen (13.Nickel Orr 55), 15.John-Paul Rochford (capt), 12.Kishon Hackshaw; 6.Isaiah Lee.

Unused substitutes: 20.Jabari Brice (GK), 5.Justin Homer, 10.Judah Garcia, 11.Che Benny, 17.Matthew Beal, 18.Kerdell Sween.

Coach: Russell Latapy.

Suriname: 1.Rivaldo Soesman, 2.Mgwenze Vola, 3.Michiel Revales, 4.Isiah Helstone, 5.Doniel Wijdenbosch , 6.Abraham Graves, 14.Brian Elshot (17.Jamilhio Rigters 82), 8.Roscello Vlijter, 11.Ferando Hoepel, 9.Alvaro Verwey (capt), 19.Shaquille Cairo (18.Ayad Godlieb 68).

Coach: Eugene Verwey.

Highlights: Trinidad 0 - 2 Suriname