Shaun Fuentes

Cale­do­nia AIA will be trav­el­ing to Port–au-Prince not on­ly in search of vic­to­ry in their re­turn clash with Tem­pete FC but will be hop­ing to touch a piece of his­to­ry and of­fer help to the less for­tu­nate on the pover­ty-strick­en coun­try. This is the in­ten­tion of the club ac­cord­ing to head coach Ja­maal Shabazz as his team con­tin­ues their build up for the re­turn leg of their Caribbean Foot­ball Union match on May 8 which Cale­do­nia will aim to over­turn the 1-0 de­feat suf­fered last Fri­day.

"It's a huge chal­lenge but we have be­come ac­cus­tomed to sit­u­a­tions like these where our backs are against the wall. But go­ing to Haiti means more than just a win or loss. Even though we are go­ing for a vic­to­ry, it's more about the his­tor­i­cal sig­nif­i­cance where peo­ple of our com­mu­ni­ty Mor­vant/Laven­tille can go to a coun­try which has shown the abil­i­ty to rise above tragedies. To me that is the re­al essence of this trip," Shabazz said.

Shabazz said his club will take the nec­es­sary pre­cau­tions by trav­el­ling with its own wa­ter sup­plies and oth­er canned foods but will still em­brace their hosts. "We took care of their ex­pens­es in Trinidad and they are al­so sup­posed to re­turn the favour. Even in war, I have been taught that you have to eat the food they have pre­pared. We are con­fi­dent that the Caribbean spir­it that ex­ists be­tween the teams will not be lost here." Cale­do­nia will spend an ex­tra day in Haiti and in­tends to of­fer some foot­ball sup­plies to those in need.

"We will take some of the ex­cess gears we have and pass it on to the broth­ers there and try to get a first-hand look at the coun­try. We are al­so team­ing up with a group that An­gus Eve is as­so­ci­at­ed with that pro­vides sup­port to the peo­ple in Haiti," Shabazz said. Any­one in­ter­est­ed in join­ing the team on the trip can reach the Cale­do­nia man­age­ment for in­for­ma­tion. For­mer LA Galaxy strik­er Cor­nell Glen has re­ceived the nec­es­sary clear­ance to play and will trav­el with the team while Ryan Stew­art has re­spond­ed well to treat­ment and is like­ly to fea­ture.

James hap­py to be part of the 'Crew'

Colum­bus Crew head coach Robert Warzy­cha­has ad­mit­ted he was left won­der­ing why de­fend­er Julius James was bounced around from team to team in the Amer­i­can MLS. James, 26, has been to four dif­fer­ent clubs since 2008, hav­ing played at Toron­to FC, Hous­ton Dy­namo and DC Unit­ed. He was re­leased by DC last sea­son de­spite lead­ing the team in min­utes on the field. He was deemed ex­pend­able by DC head coach Ben Olsen. Warzy­cha said the oth­er clubs' loss was Crew's gain. The likes of An­sil El­cock and Stern John have al­so been favourites with the Crew while Cor­nell Glen has al­so fea­tured there.

"It comes to your mind with any deal," he said. "I re­mem­ber when he played for DC how hard it was to play against him. Every sin­gle coach is go­ing to tell you what­ev­er doesn't work on the oth­er team I can fix it. This is the same thing here." James said he has ques­tioned his ca­pa­bil­i­ties at times hav­ing been asked to move from club to club but is now set­tled with the rest of the "Crew". "You tend to look at your­self to see ex­act­ly what you've been do­ing wrong," the na­tion­al team de­fend­er said. "I nev­er could look in the mir­ror and say I've been a bad team­mate or a bad per­son, bad for the lock­er room, a bad play­er. Af­ter awhile, you just get strong men­tal­ly and take it as a new door open­ing. That's why I took this op­por­tu­ni­ty."

Jones en­ters dou­ble fig­ures

Ken­wyne Jones was a pleased man on Tues­day night af­ter notch­ing his tenth goal of the sea­son to lift Stoke City to ninth spot on the Pre­mier­ship stand­ings with their 3-0 win over Wolver­hamp­ton Wan­der­ers.

Jones has now scored four goals in as many match­es dat­ing back to April 9 in a 3-2 loss to Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur. He fol­lowed that with goals against As­ton Vil­la and Bolton Wan­der­ers. "I'm very pleased the goals are com­ing. My con­fi­dence is high and I'm work­ing on mak­ing the most of it. The win was a good one for us to­day and hope­ful­ly we can main­tain this kind of form for the re­main­der of the sea­son.

"It feels great to be on this run at the mo­ment," Jones said on Tues­day.

This is the sec­ond time Jones has hit dou­ble fig­ures in the Pre­mier­ship, scor­ing 12 goals for Sun­der­land in 2008/2009. He net­ted 16 times for Southamp­ton in the Eng­lish Cham­pi­onship Di­vi­sion in 2006/2007. The records show that the 26-year-old has net­ted 70 goals in 238 match­es in As­so­ci­a­tion Foot­ball in Eng­land since he ar­rived on the scene in the 2004/2005 sea­son at Southamp­ton.

Pelti­er's team pro­mot­ed to top in Slo­va­kia

Lester Pelti­er has his first taste of Eu­ro­pean suc­cess on Sun­day as he played 53 min­utes in AS Trencin's 2-1 vic­to­ry over FK Pu­chov which saw the club win the Slo­va­kia Sec­ond Di­vi­sion and earn pro­mo­tion to the top flight Slo­vak Su­perli­ga which is al­so re­ferred to as the Cor­gon Liga. Ar­genti­na strik­er David De­petris sealed the pro­mo­tion with a dou­ble on Sun­day. Pelti­er was elat­ed, say­ing "It's a great feel­ing. I've on­ly just joined the club but I've scored my first goal al­ready and I'm hap­py to be part of the club.

"Hope­ful­ly I can play a greater role in help­ing the club in the top di­vi­sion. It's go­ing to be much tougher but I think the club is ready to make the move up and we will be work­ing hard to get the win­ning re­sults and pos­si­bly get in­to the Eu­ro­pean com­pe­ti­tions." The Slo­vak Su­perLi­ga was or­gan­ised in 1993 once the coun­try be­came in­de­pen­dent from the for­mer state of Czecho­slo­va­kia. Mean­time, Pelti­er's for­mer Ma Pau FC team­mate Kevin Moli­no made his de­but for Amer­i­can club Or­lan­do City, com­ing on in the 77th minute of their 2-2 draw with Puer­to Ri­co Unit­ed in the USL Pro Di­vi­sion last Fri­day. T&T strik­er De­vorn Jorsling played for 77 min­utes for Or­lan­do.

Shaun Fuentes is the me­dia of­fi­cer for

So­ca War­riors/TTFF. shaunfuentes@ya­hoo.com