Nathaniel James came off the bench to score his fourth goal in three match­es and set up the oth­er to fire T&T to a de­served 3-0 win over Suri­name in their must-win Group F fi­nal round match of the Con­ca­caf Men’s Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onship at the Es­ta­dio Olimpi­co Met­ro­pol­i­tano in San Pe­dro Su­la on Thurs­day night.

With the win, the An­gus Eve-coached Un­der-20 So­ca War­riors made cer­tain of qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the round-of-16 as a top-three fin­ish­er in the four-team group with Mex­i­co (six points) and Haiti (four points) who met in the group de­cider at the same venue in yes­ter­day's late match.

The match be­tween T&T and Suri­name was shift­ed to the Es­ta­dio Olimpi­co Met­ro­pol­i­tano in­stead of the orig­i­nal venue Es­ta­dio Morazan af­ter the city of San Pe­dro Su­la was af­fect­ed by very heavy rain­fall over the last week which made the play­ing sur­face at Es­ta­dio Morazan un­playable.

In the round-of-16, T&T who have reached the FI­FA U-20 World Cup Fi­nals twice be­fore, in 1991 un­der the guid­ance of Bertille St Clair and 2009 un­der Zo­ran Vranes, will come up against Cos­ta Ri­ca on Sat­ur­day at the Yankel Rosen­thal from 3 pm.

Need­ing to win Suri­name at­tempt­ed to put T&T on the back foot from the kick­off and in the tenth minute they had the first chance through strik­er Jayen Gerold on a fast break, but he was de­nied by goal­keep­er Tris­tan Ed­wards, one of five changes from the 5-0 loss by coach An­gus Eve.

Three min­utes lat­er, the nip­py Re­al Gill had T&T's first at­tempt on the Suri­name goal af­ter wig­gling his free of two de­fend­ers in­side the right-hand top of the 18-yard box, how­ev­er, his right-foot­ed snap shot was com­fort­ably col­lect­ed by goal­keep­er Jonathan Fonkel.

Ed­wards was forced in­to ac­tion again in the 20th minute as a long ball over the top beat de­fend­er Ja­heim Joseph and fell at the feet of Dim­itrio An­dro, but once again Ed­wards was alert to the dan­ger and raced off his line to make a point-blank save be­fore Joseph cleared the re­bound which was loop­ing goal­wards.

A minute, Gill again test­ed Fonkel from the right-hand cor­ner of the 18-yard box, but this time with a sting­ing left-foot­ed at­tempt that forced a cor­ner.

T&T then had a gold­en chance to take the lead via a counter-at­tack start­ed by Gill, how­ev­er cap­tain Mo­lik Khan of US Ma­jor League Soc­cer's Min­neso­ta Unit­ed dragged his left-foot­ed at­tempt across the face of Fonkel's goal­mouth.

Khan was again pre­sent­ed with an­oth­er chance to put T&T ahead, this time with Tarik Lee be­ing the provider, but Fonkel was quick­ly off his line to close down the at­tempt.

Four min­utes from the half-time whis­tle, Khan did man­age to put the ball in­to the back of the net, but it was waved off by ref­er­ee Bryan Lopez of Guatemala for a han­dled ball, and de­spite the protest of the T&T cap­tain who plead­ed his case as the ball came off his chest, the de­ci­sion was sur­pris­ing­ly up­held by the Video As­sis­tant Ref­er­ee of­fi­cials.

On the re­sump­tion, chances con­tin­ued to fall for both teams with Khan mist­im­ing a right-foot­ed vol­ley at the edge of the six-yard box from a right-sided cen­tre by sec­ond-half in­tro­duc­tion Nathaniel James while at the oth­er end, de­fend­er Joseph was caught on the ball by Gerold on the just in­side the half, but the Suri­name at­tack­er failed to make full use of his team-mates on a three ver­sus two counter-at­tacks.

Khan was again pre­sent­ed with an­oth­er chance to put T&T ahead when Thomas drew the at­ten­tion of four Suri­name play­ers in­side the 18-yard box be­fore slip­ping his cap­tain a short pass, but yet again, he failed to find the tar­get.

The go-ahead item would fi­nal­ly come for T&T a minute lat­er thanks to James as he un­leashed a left-foot­ed dri­ve from about five yards out­side the top of the "D" which caught Fonkel off-guard and nes­tled in­to the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the goal.

T&T was now in the dri­vers' seat while Suri­name now need­ed two goals to ad­vance and af­ter fur­ther near miss­es from Gill and Thomas, Khan fi­nal­ly found the tar­get when he con­nect­ed with a James left-foot­ed free-kick on the vol­ley to guide the ball home in the 84th minute for a 2-0 lead.

James then scored an­oth­er with two min­utes left on the clock to up his tal­ly to four goals when his in­tend­ed pass to fel­low sub­sti­tute Tyrik Trot­man ric­o­chet off a Suri­name de­fend­er in­to his path for a con­fi­dent fin­ish past Fonkel to put the ic­ing on the win and avenge a 2-0 loss to the same op­po­nents in 2018.

The trio of USA (sev­en points), Cu­ba (six), and Cana­da (four) qual­i­fied from Group E while hosts Hon­duras with a max­i­mum of nine points, Cos­ta Ri­ca (four), and Ja­maica (4-0) have al­so qual­i­fied as the top three fin­ish­ers in Group H, and in Group G, El Sal­vador (six) and Guatemala (six), as well as Pana­ma (three) all qual­i­fied ahead of last night's fi­nal pool match be­tween Pana­ma and El Sal­vador for the top spot.

The 12 qual­i­fiers from the four groups now ad­vance to the round-of-16 where they will join al­ready qual­i­fied Cu­ra­cao, Nicaragua, Puer­to Ri­co and Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic who all qual­i­fied di­rect­ly as win­ners of their re­spec­tive groups in the Con­ca­caf Men’s U-20 Cham­pi­onship Qual­i­fiers held last No­vem­ber in San­to Domin­go, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic.

The 16-team Knock­out Stage will be­gin with the round-of-16 Sat­ur­day, June 25, and con­tin­ue on Sun­day, June 26 fol­lowed by the quar­ter­fi­nals on Tues­day, June 28, and Wednes­day, June 29, semi­fi­nals on Fri­day, Ju­ly 1, and the fi­nal on Sun­day, Ju­ly 3.

Un­like the pre­vi­ous edi­tions, the com­pe­ti­tion will de­ter­mine not on­ly the four Con­ca­caf rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the 2023 FI­FA U-20 World Cup in In­done­sia but al­so the two Con­ca­caf rep­re­sen­ta­tives at the 2024 Sum­mer Olympics in Paris, France.

Thurs­day's Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Group F re­sult:

T&T 3 (Nathaniel James 64th, 88th, Mo­lik Khan 84th) vs Suri­name 0

Team lists:

T&T: 18 Tris­tan Ed­wards (GK), 2 Chris­t­ian Bai­ley, 4 Ja­heim Joseph, 13 Noah Ro­ka, 14 Josi­ah Coop­er, 6 Kas­sidy David­son (3 Mar­vin Wal­drop 80th), 7 Kai­him Thomas (17 An­drew De Gannes 69th), 8 Luke Phillip, 10 Mo­lik Khan (cap­tain), 9 Re­al Gill (16 Tyrik Trot­man 80th), 20 Tarik Lee (11 Nathaniel James 47th).

Subs not used: 1 Jahiem Wick­ham (GK), 19 Isa­iah Thomp­son, 5 Jaron Pas­call, 15 Mic­ah Cain.

Suri­name: 20 Jonathan Fonkel (GK), 2 Shafiek Wasse­naar (18 Raviek Pry­or 66th), 4 Dichay­ro Naaren­dorp (cap­tain), 5 Eja Dakri­et, 7 El­d­jero De Mees (9 Am­miel Rein­goud 47th), 8 Jay­davon Haas, 11 Chive­rio Adelij, 15 Ches­ron Oost­woud, 16 Jayen Gerold, 10 Dim­itrio An­dro, 13 Givon Der­by (12 Jair Brashuis 74th),

Subs not used: 1 Dwayne Meer­zorg (GK), 14 Ja­mal Lodik, 6 Rafael Wartes, 17 Roche Asi­dan, 19 Geor­rayne Boumann.