Ter­minix La Hor­quet­ta Rangers has a point to prove to their fans at home in Phase II La Hor­quet­ta on Fri­day evening from 6 pm.

Their un­der-par per­for­mances to date have left them one spot from the bot­tom of the 12-team stand­ings with five points from sev­en match­es, a far cry from the team that fin­ished fourth in 2023.

Coach Dave Quam­i­na’s men have won just once in sev­en en­coun­ters and drawn twice. With four loss­es dom­i­nat­ing their fig­ures, both Quam­i­na and his play­ers could face a hos­tile crowd when they come up against FC Phoenix, the To­bag­o­ni­ans who, de­spite be­ing in the top-flight foot­ball league for on­ly their sec­ond time, still hold a one-point ad­van­tage on the home team.

Quam­i­na said his team is the youngest in the league, and they are giv­ing them the time to find them­selves in the game. The Rangers at­tack­ing style of play, which Quam­i­na said they do not ever change re­gard­less of who they are up against, will be no easy game to play go­ing up against a more ex­pe­ri­enced bunch of play­ers than them.

“We’re not rush­ing the young play­ers. The team is made up most­ly of play­ers from the Sec­ondary Schools Foot­ball League (SS­FL), so we are be­ing pa­tient with them. Against Phoenix, we are go­ing to play our game, but com­ing up against a team with more ex­pe­ri­enced play­ers than ours, the re­sult can go in any­body’s favour,” Quam­i­na ex­plained.

“The young Rangers boys have strug­gled to play to the pace of the league, but we are con­fi­dent that they will get there even­tu­al­ly,” said Quam­i­na.

In their last match at the Bar­racks, Rangers in­stru­men­tal strik­er Isa­iah Lee scored a dou­ble, but his team went down to a 4-3 de­feat to San Juan Jabloteh, who got goals from Der­rel ‘Zoom Zoom’ Gar­cia, Eli­jah Seechan, An­dell Fras­er, and Keanu John.

In the oth­er game tonight at 8 pm, MIC Cen­tral FC Re­boot will at­tempt to re­bound from a 3-0 loss to in-form favourites De­fence Force. De­spite the re­sult, though, the Cen­tral Sharks, as Cen­tral FC is known, still hold the sec­ond-place po­si­tion in the stand­ings with 15 points, cour­tesy of a bet­ter goal dif­fer­ence than AC Port of Spain, who is al­so on 15 points.

FRI­DAY’S MATCH­ES

FC Phoenix vs La Hor­quet­ta Rangers- 6 pm @ La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground

MIC Cen­tral CF Re­boot vs Point Fortin Civic- 8 pm @ La Hor­quet­ta Recre­ation Ground

SAT­UR­DAY

FC Ea­gles vs San Juan Jabloteh- 6pm @ Ari­ma Velo­drome

Club San­do vs De­fence Force- 8 pm @ Ari­ma Velo­drome

SUN­DAY

AC Port of Spain vs Prison FC- 5 pm @ Po­lice Bar­racks, St James

Cale­do­nia vs Mis­cel­la­neous Po­lice- 7 pm @ Po­lice Bar­racks, St James

Lat­est Stand­ing­sTeams*P*W*D*L*F*A*GD*Pts

1. De­fence Force FC*7*7*0*0*31*9*22*21

2. Cen­tral FC*7*5*0*2*16*9*7*15

3. AC PoS*7*5*0*2*16*10*6*15

4. Cale­do­nia AIA*7*4*1*2*11*13*-2*13

5. Jabloteh*7*3*2*2*17*15*2*11

6. Po­lice FC*7*3*1*3*20*12*8*10

7. Club San­do*7*2*3*2*14*8*6*9

8. Prison Ser­vice FC*7*1*3*3*9*14*-5*6

9. Point Fortin Civic*7*2*0*5*8*13*-5*6

10. 1976 FC Phoenix*7*2*0*5*10*12*-2*6

11. La Hor­quet­ta Rangers*7*1*2*4*10*16*-6*5

12. Ea­gles FC*7*1*0*6*7*31*-24*3