Nigel Si­mon

This coun­try's So­ca War­riors were held to a dull 0-0 by vis­it­ing Nicaragua in their fi­nal friend­ly en­counter be­fore kick­ing off its 2018 Con­ca­caf Semi­fi­nal Round World Cup Group C qual­i­fy­ing cam­paign away to Guatemala on No­vem­ber 13, be­fore re­turn­ing home for clash with USA on No­vem­ber 17.

Com­ing off a hard fought, 2-1 away win over Pana­ma on Thurs­day, coach Stephen Hart was hop­ing his 55th world ranked So­ca War­riors stamp their au­thor­i­ty on the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans, ranked 95th, and ear­ly it looked that way as T&T pressed for a quick open­er.

As ear­ly as the third minute, the Nicaraguans came un­der pres­sure with Keron Cum­mings left sided cen­tre, first falling to Khaleem Hy­land and then Trevin Cae­sar, in­side the 18-yard box.

How­ev­er, on each oc­ca­sion, the T&T play­ers failed to con­nect clean­ly, let­ting the Cen­tral Amer­i­cans off the hook, with the ball even­tu­al­ly be­ing scram­bled away for a cor­ner.

Three min­utes lat­er, Jo­evin Jones had an­oth­er ef­fort on goal for T&T, this time from a 25-yard free-kick, but his shot just missed the first post with Col­la­do, scram­bling to get across in time.

In the 17th minute, Pana­ma cap­tain Juan Perez had his team's first at­tempt, chest­ing down a ball be­tween Daneil Cyrus and Yohance Mar­shall, be­fore vol­ley­ing over­bar.

Three min­utes lat­er, cap­tain Jones raced in­to the box be­hind a Cum­mings through pass, but Nicaraguan de­fend­er Manuel Arreo­la was alert to the play and cut out the pass as both play­ers fell to the turf, and de­spite ap­peals from the T&T strik­er for a penal­ty, none came from To­ba­go ref­er­ee Keon Yorke.

As time went on, Nicaragua grew in­to the match with Elvis Figueroa curl­ing a right foot­ed at­tempt just wide of a des­per­ate dive from T&T goal­keep­er Jan-Michael Williams.

Eight min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half Cum­mings whipped in a cor­ner but it just missed the tow­er­ing fig­ure of Shel­don Bateau with the Cen­tral Amer­i­can de­fence all at sea.

T&T en­joyed the bet­ter start to the sec­ond-half and in the 59th minute Cae­sar squared to Cum­mings, but the ef­fort was slammed in­to the body of his cap­tain.

Three min­utes lat­er, Cum­mings had time and space to go for­ward but shot low and hard, on­ly for Col­la­do to save.

Debu­tant Aikim An­drews had a late ef­fort on goal for T&T, but it was de­flect­ed wide of the tar­get.

With the sec­onds run­ning down, Jo­evin Jones and An­drews then had surg­ing runs which brought the dor­mant crowd to life, but their fi­nal de­liv­er­ies were not on tar­get.

An­drews had one last twist deep in­to time added on, but his fi­nal shot was high and wide of the tar­get to the dis­may of his team-mates and the crowd.

Teams:

T&T: 21. Jan-Michael Williams (GK), 2. Aubrey David (Mikeil Williams 68th), 3. Jo­evin Jones, 4. Shel­don Bateau, 8 Khaleem Hy­land, 9. Ken­wyne Jones (cap­tain) Jonathan Glen 73rd), 11. Trevin Cae­sar (Aikim An­drews 78th), 18. Yohance Mar­shall (Radan­fah Abu Bakr 57th), 19. Ke­van George, 20. Keron Cum­mings (An­dre Bou­caud 67th), 23. Daneil Cyrus

Subs not used: 1. Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 10. Willis Plaza, 15. Ne­veal Hack­shaw.

Coach: Stephen Hart

Nicaragua: 1. Jus­to Col­la­do (GK), 2. Joseue Po­to­sme, 3. Manuel Arreo­la (cap­tain), 4. Os­car Pine­da, 5. Luis Ramirez, 6. Luis Muril­lo (20. Ax­el Cabr­era 81st), 7.Car­los Ro­driguez, (15.Car­los Calle­jas 90th) 8. Mar­lon Moreno (Ja­son Mar­tinez 86th), 9. Raul Avi­la (Eu­lis­es Al­vara­do 77th), 10. Elvis Figueroa (Bri­an Sirias 68th), 11. Juan Perez (cap­tain)

Subs not used: 19. Jessie Hodg­son, 17. Er­ick La­zo, 16. Daniel Avel­lan, 12. Diedrich Cuevas

Coach: Hen­ry Duarte Moli­na