Lewis inspires Soca Warriors win

The Arabs were in trou­ble as ear­ly as the sec­ond minute when T&T skip­per Khaleem Hy­land found some free­dom in the area, un­for­tu­nate­ly his shot was on the wrong side of the cross­bar but Charleston Bat­tery' Ataulla Guer­ra, play­ing his first match for T&T in over two years was the epit­o­me of com­po­sure when he fin­ished in style to open the scor­ing in the 37th minute at the end of a classy build up be­tween Lewis and Fin­land-based Shah­don Win­ches­ter.

The speedy Lewis was a thorn in the side of the UAE as he dom­i­nat­ed the left flank for long pe­ri­ods and sub­se­quent­ly came in for some rough play but de­spite con­stant prob­ing from the for­mer Jabloteh winger and Ger­many-based Jo­evin Jones, it re­mained 1-0 T&T at the half.

Jones took over pro­ceed­ings in the sec­ond pe­ri­od as he tor­ment­ed his op­po­nents with deft skill and pen­e­tra­tive pass­es and it was one of those pass­es which opened the door for goal num­ber two.

The Darm­stadt 98 mid­field­er pick up the ball at the half line and just left de­fend­ers in his wake be­fore de­liv­er­ing the per­fect cen­tre for Lewis to neat­ly fin­ish in the 58th minute.

To their cred­it, the UAE then came hard at Den­nis Lawrence’s team with Omar Al­raqi caus­ing some prob­lems in the mid­dle of the pitch but the de­fence in that area was well mar­shalled by Daneil Cyrus and Kevon George.

When they did get through, T&T goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip showed his class be­tween the up­rights, deny­ing Al­raqi and Is­mail Al­ham­ma­di who pro­duced cred­i­ble at­tempts.

The 2-0 vic­to­ry makes for an im­pres­sive run for the team since the No­vem­ber 2017 win over the Unit­ed States with three wins, three draws and one loss.

Coach Lawrence was ob­vi­ous­ly pleased with the ef­fort and said: 'I think we did re­al­ly well. I am re­al­ly pleased with the boys. I think every­body knows what we have been through over the last few days and I have to give them full cred­it for their per­for­mance.'

Look­ing at the game the ef­fort they put in and I thought they worked very well as a group and they de­served the vic­to­ry.

'With re­gards to Guer­ra, Lawrence said he thought the USA based play­er played well.'

'I thought Ataulla (Guer­ra) came in and did re­al­ly well. He took his goal re­al­ly well and Nathan Lewis I thought he had an out­stand­ing match to­day (yes­ter­day).

All in all, as a team they all worked to­geth­er and dug in as a team.

In gen­er­al, Lawrence said the match was re­al­ly im­por­tant for the na­tion­al team.

'We spoke about the prepa­ra­tion and they were all an­gry just like I was, so we are very proud with the re­sult and we move on from here now.'

Slo­va­kian-based de­fend­er, 19-year-old Ke­ston Julien was a late in­tro­duc­tion in the match and Lawrence speak­ing of the for­mer Jabloteh play­er said he did a great job.

'We were lead­ing 2-0 and UAE was press­ing and look­ing for a goal, but he came in and did very well, and al­so cre­at­ed a chance where he al­most had an as­sist to make it 3-0.

'All in all, I was very pleased with the to­tal team ef­fort as the boys have shown again they are pre­pared to work hard for T&T.'

Look­ing ahead Lawrence said the fo­cus will now shift to the match against Thai­land on Oc­to­ber 14 in Bangkok, but be­fore that he is ex­pect­ed to have a de­brief­ing about the UAE con­test as well as some dis­cus­sions with the T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion.

Videos - 

Trinidad Tobago vs UAE 2-0 Highlights /friendly match

Dennis Lawrence's post match reactions after 2-0 win over UAE

Teams

Trinidad and Tobago (4-2-3-1): 1.Marvin Phillip (GK); 2.Aubrey David, 4.Sheldon Bateau, 5.Daneil Cyrus, 18.Triston Hodge (6.Keston Julien); 19.Kevan George, 8.Khaleem Hyland (captain); 7.Nathan Lewis (12.Kathon St Hillaire 88), 9.Ataulla Guerra (16.Neveal Hackshaw 67), 3.Joevin Jones (23.Jomal Williams 83); 10.Shahdon Winchester (11.Marcus Joseph 74).

Unused substitutes: 22.Adrian Foncette (GK), 15.Curtis Gonzales, 14.Akeem Humphrey, 13.Duane Muckette.

Coach: Dennis Lawrence

UAE (3-4-3): Khalid Eisa (GK); 20.Mohammed Marzooq (16.Hassan Al Saheh 81), 19.Ismail Ahmed, 6.Mohnad Salem; 2.Mohamed Barghash, 8.Majed Ahmed (25.Ali Salmin 59), 13.Khamis Esmaeel, 21.Mahmoud Al Hammadi; 10.Omar Abdulrahman, 7.Ali Mabkhout, 11.Ahmed Khalil (captain) (15.Ismail Al Hammadi 59).

Unused substitutes: 1.Ali Humaid (GK), 22.Fahad Ahmed (GK), 9.Ahmed Barman, 23.Mohamed Ahmed, 5.Amer Abdulrahman, 26.Bandar Sahmeed, 3.Walid Murad, 4.Khalifa Mubarak, 14.Rayan Mohammed, 17.Fares Hasan.

Coach: Alberto Zaccheroni