T&T Soca Princesses went under to Mexico 2-1 in its Group B opener of the Concacaf Under-20 Women's Championship at Estadio Cementos Progreso, yesterday. Natasha St Louis fired T&T into the lead but sloppy defensive work gifted the Central Americans two goals to deny the T&T girls a winning start to their campaign which will see the top three teams qualifying for the Fifa U-20 Women's World Cup in Germany in July. Tomorrow, the Jamaal Shabazz-coached T&T women will come up against powerhouse USA in a match they must at least take a point from to keep hopes of reaching the semifinals alive.
The Americans came up against Jamaica in its opener last night. It was expected to be a major challenge for T&T and they were largely unfavoured going into the match, but St Louis produced a brilliant goal in only the first minute of the match, beating Mexican defender, Alina Garciamendez, before squeezing the ball past the goalkeeper, to give her side some hope, of upsetting their Mexican counterparts. However, the light soon dimmed as Mexico took control of the match thereafter and pounded at the T&T goal, forcing its custodian, Kimika Forbes to pull her best tricks out.
T&T will be unarguably grateful to Forbes who denied the Mexicans on a number of occasions with some brilliant saves that prevented a humiliating score line. An equaliser was inevitable and the Mexicans soon found it in the 32nd minute, but fortunately for T&T, an extremely bad call by the lineswoman, ruled Liliana Godoy's shot offside. Replays showed that none of the Mexican players were even remotely close to being offside. T&T then suffered a blow when skipper, Mariah Shade had to be replaced in the 58th minute after a collision while going up for a header. The Mexicans continued to thread their way through the sloppy T&T defence with ease, keeping pressure on Forbes whose first line of defence was being embarrassingly exploited.
Mexico finally found the equaliser less than a minute before the end of the first half, through Godoy, who was again on the receiving end of a great pass from Charlyn Corrall, who set up both of Mexico's goals. Natalia Lagunas secured the three points for Mexico when she beat T&T defender Taylor Mims and easily slipped the ball past Forbes from inside the 18-yard-box for a 2-1 lead in the 80th minute.
Results
Yesterday's:
Mexico 2 (Liliana Godoy 45th, Natalia Lagunas 80th) vs T&T 1 (Natasha St Louis 1st).
Wednesday's:
Guatemala 2 (Ana Martinez 8th, 46th) vs Cuba 1 (Yezenia Gallardo 62nd).
Canada 1 (Adriana Leon 28th) vs Costa Rica 0.
Fixtures
Today: Cuba vs Canada 3 pm (5 pm local time).
Guatemala vs Costa Rica 5 pm, (7 pm local time).
