Mexico ends T&T Women’s World Cup qualifying hopes

The Mexicans improved to 1W-0D-1L and three points, but remained behind Panama (1W-0D-1L, 3) in goal differential, minus three to minus two. That will set up a Wednesday clash between the teams for the final semifinal spot from Group A. The Soca Princess fell to 0W-0D-2L.

A second half equalizer from the penalty spot by Jonelle Cato gave T&T some hope but Mexico pulled away soon after. Earlier in the first half T&T started quickly out of the starting blocks and should have gone 1-0 ahead when Kennya Cordner found room on the left of the box before dragging her effort inches wide of the right post.

Charlyn Corral scored twice for El Tri and Katie Johnson snapped a 1-1 deadlock in the 55th minute, nodding home a corner kick for her fifth international goal.

Corral gave Mexico a 33rd-minute lead. Maria Sanchez fired a shot from the left flank that goalkeeper Kimika Forbes saved parrying the ball into the path of an onrushing Corral, who tapped it in.

After she was taken down in the box by Bianca Sierra, Cato converted an equalizing penalty kick past goalkeeper Cecilia Santiago in the 50th minute.

Five minutes later, Johnson scored before Corral added an insurance tally off a right-wing feed by captain Stephany Mayor in the 62nd minute. Sanchez closed out the scoring with a 70th-minute header.

Because of Mexico’s win, group leader United States (2W-0D-0L, 6), buoyed by its 5-0 win over Panama, qualified for the knockout stage.

Teams

Trinidad and Tobago 1.Kimika Forbes (GK); 8.Patrice Superville (16.Shadi Cecily Stoute 46′), 5.Arin King, 4.Rhea Belgrave, 7.Jonelle Cato; 11.Janine Francois (9.Liana Hinds 67′), 18.Naomie Guerra, 14.Karyn Forbes; 6.Natasha St Louis, 10.Tasha St Louis (captain) (2.Ayana Russell 35′); 19.Kennya Cordner.

Subs not used. 20.Saundra Baron (GK), 3.Mariah Shade, 15.Shenelle Henry, 17.Lauryn Hutchinson.

Unavailable: 12.Kayla Taylor, 13.Jenelle Cunningham.

Head Coach: Shawn Cooper

Mexico 1.Cecilia Santiago (GK); 2.Kenti Robles, 4.Bianca Sierra (14.Arianna Romero 56′), 3.Christina Murillo, 5.Mónica Flores; 6.Nancy Antonio, 7.Nayeli Rangel (18.Kiana Palacios 56′); 10.Stephany Mayor (captain), 9.Charlyn Corral, 17.María Sánchez; 19.Katie Johnson.

Subs not used 12.Bianca Henninger, 13.Rebeca Rodríguez, 8.Karla Nieto, 16.Cristina Ferral, 15.Ariana Calderón, 11.Mónica Ocampo, 20.Lizbeth Ovalle.

Head Coach: Roberto Medina

CWC 2018 Mexico vs Trinidad & Tobago Highlights

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Soca Princesses bow out qualifiers.
By Walter Alibey (Guardian).

The jour­ney to the FI­FA Women's World Cup next year in France, came to a sad but ex­pect­ed end, for the T&T Women foot­ballers when they were beat­en by Mex­i­co in their sec­ond match of the CON­CA­CAF Women's Cham­pi­onship at the Sahlen's Sta­di­um, North Car­oli­na, USA on Sun­day.

They will now play for pride in their last match on Wednesday against un­beat­en Unit­ed States women. It is the some of the play­ers view that they were nev­er giv­en a fair chance at qual­i­fy­ing.

Mar­lon Charles, a for­mer na­tion­al women's coach called on ad­min­is­tra­tors to bring an end to the con­stant fight­ing and work to­geth­er in the in­ter­est of the sport. "In foot­ball, you have to do more work off the field to get the re­sults on the field," Charles told Guardian Me­dia Sports.

Fol­low­ing on the heels of the team's 3-0 loss to Pana­ma last Thurs­day, the So­ca Princess­es who need­ed a win to have a chance of ad­vanc­ing, were stunned when goal­keep­er Kimi­ka Forbes failed to hold on to a cross that was whipped in from the left side, and pro­lif­ic Mex­i­can strik­er Char­lyn Cor­rel dashed in to con­vert from the blun­der in the 34th minute.

Jonelle Cato lat­er gave the T&T women a life­line when she equal­ized from the penal­ty spot in the 50th minute. But the cel­e­bra­tions of the T&T team last­ed just five min­utes be­fore the Mex­i­cans found them­selves ahead again.

Katie John­son leapt high to head home a right-side cor­ner in the 55th for a 2-1 ad­van­tage be­fore Cor­rel sneaked in from be­hind the T&T de­fence to fire in her sec­ond goal of the match sev­en min­utes lat­er. Maria Sanchez com­plet­ed the vic­to­ry for the Mex­i­cans, climb­ing ahead of her mark­er in the box to beat Forbes with a pow­er­ful head­er in the 70th.

T&T will next face the USA at 7:30 pm at the Sahlen's Sta­di­um, fac­ing the pos­si­bil­i­ty of an­oth­er bar­rage of goals if the women are un­able to pull it to­geth­er.

Charles told Guardian Me­dia Sports "In foot­ball you need to do every­thing re­quired to com­pete, and that in­cludes hav­ing good prepa­ra­tion, but I am afraid that was not the case with our team which is un­for­tu­nate."

He not­ed "This lack of prepa­ra­tion be­comes worse when you're go­ing up against teams that are well pre­pared. In foot­ball, all we need play­ers to do is fo­cus on their tech­ni­cal and tac­ti­cal as­pects of the game. But for the last two match­es, our girls just nev­er had that."