Kicks from the spot sealed Cale­do­nia AIA its first ever re­gion­al tro­phy, as the Mor­vant-based club copped the Caribbean Foot­ball Union (CFU) Club Cham­pi­onship at the ex­pense of fel­low TT Pro League club W Con­nec­tion, af­ter both teams played to a 1-1 draw in a two-hour en­counter, on Thurs­day night. It was the sec­ond fix­ture of a dou­ble-head­er, played at the Man­nie Ramjohn Sta­di­um, Mara­bel­la, which fol­lowed the third-place play­off. USL Pro club Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers se­cured the fi­nal Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons League (CCL) spot, with a 2-0 win over An­tigua Bar­racu­da. The sec­ond fix­ture, how­ev­er, was not as forth­right as the evening's open­er. Both TT Pro clubs Cale­do­nia and Con­nec­tion, which al­ready sealed their places in next month's CCL, at­tempt­ed to sift out each oth­er, and ear­ly op­por­tu­ni­ties for ei­ther team were replied to by equal re­spons­es thrown in the op­po­site di­rec­tion.

It was ev­i­dent that spec­ta­tors were in for a long night of foot­ball. Sev­er­al more ef­forts in the first half for W Con­nec­tion, how­ev­er, may have giv­en the "Savon­net­ta Boys" the edge. Con­nec­tion at­tack­ers Hashim Ar­cia, Kern Cu­pid and Jo­evin Jones all had sights of goal, but did not look like­ly to take a lead. A tense at­mos­phere in the south­ern are­na was tes­ta­ment to the his­toric oc­ca­sion, and de­spite the venue los­ing elec­tri­cal pow­er sev­er­al times through­out the night, even as ear­ly as 15 min­utes in­to the first half, the 22 play­ers man­aged to kept their con­cen­tra­tion through­out. Cale­do­nia scored the first goal of the match in the first 15-minute pe­ri­od of ex­tra time through Radan­fah Abu Bakr, a de­fend­er, who head­ed in a pow­er­ful ef­fort in the 98th minute of play. It was his sec­ond goal in as many match­es in the tour­na­ment.

How­ev­er, just be­fore the end of the first half of ex­tra time, W Con­nec­tion got the all im­por­tant lev­eller through a Clyde Leon penal­ty. De­spite an­oth­er cou­ple of op­por­tu­ni­ties, no fur­ther goals were scored from open play and the match went to penal­ty kicks. Cale­do­nia and Con­nec­tion both con­vert­ed their first penal­ty kicks through Wal­ter Moore and Leon, re­spec­tive­ly. Cu­pid, who took Con­nec­tion's sec­ond shot, saw his ef­fort missed, while the last kick-tak­er for W Con­nec­tion, Pelti­er, had his shot saved by Samuel, who de­served many a mer­it for his achieve­ment in goal at such a ten­der age. For­mer na­tion­al mid­field­er Stephan David stepped up and con­vert­ed the fourth and de­ci­sive penal­ty for Cale­do­nia, which com­ple­ment­ed an ex­cel­lent sea­son for the 32-year-old Cale­do­nia club. The two teams were re­ward­ed on­ly two days pri­or with a spot in the fi­nal, not on­ly as­sur­ing one team a chance at tak­ing the tro­phy, but al­so a spot in the CCL, which would at least serve as some con­so­la­tion to the three-time CFU cham­pi­ons. Cale­do­nia's win means they join Amer­i­can MLS club Seat­tle Sounders and Hon­duras' Marathon, in a three-team group in the Con­ca­caf com­pe­ti­tion, while W Con­nec­tion faces Mex­i­co's Chivas de Guadala­jara and Guatemala's Xe­la­ju af­ter fin­ish­ing run­ner-up. Third placed Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers will take on David Beck­ham and LA Galaxy, as well as Isidro Meta­pan from El Sal­vador.

Re­sults

CFU Club Cham­pi­onship Fi­nal

Cale­do­nia AIA 1 (Radan­fah Abu Bark 98th) vs W Con­nec­tion 1 (Clyde Leon 104th)- Cale­do­nia won 4-3 on kicks from the penal­ty spot

CFU Club Cham­pi­onship Third Place Play­off

Puer­to Ri­co Is­landers 2 (Joshua Hansen, Jonathan Frias Fana pen) vs An­tigua Bar­racu­da 0