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Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Bermuda stuns Soca Warriors 2-1

by

20111009

Trinidad and To­ba­go's se­nior foot­ballers put them­selves in a fa­mil­iar po­si­tion hav­ing to win all three re­main­ing match­es in the cur­rent CON­CA­CAF group phase if they are to re­alise their am­bi­tions of qual­i­fy­ing for Brazil 2014. And that's all it took to cause some dis­com­fort for Ot­to Pfis­ter's men who went down 2-1 to Bermu­da at the Na­tion­al Sports Cen­tre, Hamil­ton on Fri­day night. The lost left T&T sec­ond in the group on six points be­hind Guyana (9 pts af­ter beat­ing Bar­ba­dos 2-0) with Bermu­da third on three and Bar­ba­dos point­less. John Nusum did the dam­age to T&T, back in 2008, and his re­turn to the Bermu­da line-up on Fri­day night brought back the win­ner's luck as the hosts took their chances per­fect­ly with Antwell Rus­sell hit­ting home past Mar­vin Phillip in the 53rd minute and Brad­ford City strik­er Nah­ki Wells; pun­ish­ing them with a blis­ter­ing shot fol­low­ing an er­ror at the back ten min­utes lat­er. The game it­self seemed odd from the start as the Bermu­dan an­them was nev­er played but in­stead the sounds of Unit­ed States' own start­ed play­ing short­ly af­ter T&T's an­them. That was the sec­ond time of such an oc­cur­rence at the same venue at a meet­ing be­tween both teams.

Added to that, there was an an­nounce­ment over the PA sys­tem that the game time would be pushed back be­cause fans were still try­ing to get in­to the sta­di­um which seats just un­der 3,000 fans. The game even­tu­al­ly kicked off 18 min­utes late. The Bermu­dans showed spir­it on the pitch against a T&T team that was miss­ing five reg­u­lar starters but still man­aged to move the ball around with some zip ear­ly de­spite strug­gling to cre­ate clear cut chances on goal. When Kevin Moli­no pulled a goal back in the 81st minute, T&T could not com­plete a come­back de­spite their valiant ef­forts in the clos­ing stages. Lester Pelti­er had an ef­fort on 12 min­utes and Stern John's low dri­ve from a free kick went wide two min­utes lat­er. Bermu­da slow­ly got in­to their own and once they re­alised they were in a po­si­tion to chal­lenge for re­sult their spir­its lift­ed and they be­gan to be­lieve. Skip­per and main­man Khano Smith, play­ing in the left wing­back po­si­tion, forced a cor­ner with a good ef­fort and Kwame Steede shot in­to the side net­ting soon af­ter.

Pfis­ter played Hay­den Tin­to on the left and Pelti­er on the right but the for­mer nev­er set­tled and forced the Ger­man to re­place him with Hugh­tun Hec­tor in the 34th. John was up top with Khaleem Hy­land, Moli­no and Keon Daniel in the mid­dle. Seon Pow­er and Julius James played in cen­tral de­fence with Akeem Adams on the left and Os­ei Teles­ford on the right. Lashun Dill caused a scare for T&T when his ef­fort rocked the cross­bar in the 36th minute and Bermu­da's con­fi­dence kept grow­ing. All the while T&T ap­peared com­fort­able de­spite not mount­ing count­less pres­sure on the Bermu­dan goal. As the sec­ond half start­ed, Bermu­da went in ear­ly search of a goal with Wells' shot saved by Phillips. They got the go ahead item when a soft ex­change be­tween Daniel and Teles­ford al­lowed An­dre Man­ders to pick up pos­ses­sion and he found Rus­sell who clin­i­cal­ly got the ball past Phillips. The goal cer­tain­ly woke T&T up with Hec­tor prov­ing to be a force on the left side but it wasn't too long be­fore Bermu­da put a fur­ther dent on T&T.

An­oth­er lapse at the ball saw the end re­sult be­ing Wells pick­ing up and un­leash­ing a rock­et which left Phillip hap­less be­tween the sticks. The Bermu­dans cel­e­brat­ed like nev­er be­fore. John had a head­er de­nied and his re­place­ment De­vorn Jorsling brought some ad­di­tion­al force up front for T&T. Moli­no brought back some hope for T&T when he bun­dled the ball over the line for a 2-1 score­line af­ter Ke­vaughn Con­nell played one in that caused some may­hem in the box. T&T pressed and hus­tled af­ter every ball, keep­ing Bermu­da on the back­foot for much of the re­main­ing half but could not force an equal­iz­er. Julius James had a head­er cleared on the line and Pelti­er al­so muffed an op­por­tu­ni­ty in­side the box while Hec­tor curled one wide of the far post late in the game. When the fi­nal whis­tle came af­ter three min­utes in­jury time, the re­sult hurt the T&T team. But Bermu­da be­gan par­ty­ing with what maybe the team's biggest ever vic­to­ry on home soil. Pfis­ter will hold a ses­sion on Sat­ur­day morn­ing pri­or to the team's de­par­ture to Port-of-Spain where they will face Bar­ba­dos from 5 pm on Tues­day at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um.

Pfis­ter: No rea­son to press pan­ic but­ton

Head coach Ot­to Pfis­ter said this was no time or rea­son for press­ing the pan­ic but­ton as this coun­try heads in­to its next three 2014 World Cup qual­i­fy­ing match­es need­ing to win to stay ahead in the race for a se­mi-fi­nal round spot. Speak­ing af­ter Fri­day's 2-1 de­feat to Bermu­da in Hamil­ton, Pfis­ter said: "Bermu­da were a good team to­day. Okay, I nev­er look for ex­cus­es but we had three or four key play­ers that didn't play to­day and we had three play­ers that played for me for the first time to­day. This was dif­fi­cult for the co-or­di­na­tion. "No need to press the pan­ic but­ton. In foot­ball you have three pos­si­bil­i­ties. You draw, you win or you lose. To­day we lose. The first two games we win and now we have to try and win again. "The weath­er was the same for the two teams. They had two op­por­tu­ni­ties and they took them. This is foot­ball."

Teams

Bermu­da: Fred­er­ick Hall, Khano Smith (cap­tain), Tau­re­an Man­ders (Seion Dar­rell, 85th), Ke­man Tuck­er, De­vrae Tankard, Tyrell Burgess, Kwame Steede, Lashan Dill (Da­mon Ming, 65th),John Bar­ry Nusum, Antwan Rus­sell,Nakhi Wells (Chris Casey, 68th).

Subs not used: Tahj Bell (Red 37'), Quadir May­nard, An­ge­lo Sim­mons, Jesse Sey­mour.

T&T: Mar­vin Phillip,Seon Pow­er, Julius James, Akeem Adams, Os­ei Teles­ford, Lester Pelti­er, Khaleem Hy­land, Keon Daniel (Ke­vaughn Con­nell, 65th), Hay­den Tin­to (Hugh­tun Hec­tor, 34th),Kevin Moli­no, Stern John (capt) (De­vorn Jorsling, 60th).

Subs not used: - Jan-Michael Williams, An­drei Pacheco, Clyde Leon, Mekeil Williams.


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