Nigel Si­mon

Four-time win­ner and cur­rent T&T Foot­ball Fed­er­a­tion FA Tro­phy hold­er, bmo­bile Joe Pub­lic will put its ti­tle on the line tonight when it faces fel­low Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League club, and bit­ter ri­val, San Juan Jabloteh for a quar­ter­fi­nal spot. The meet­ing be­tween Joe Pub­lic, win­ner in 2001, 2004, 2007 and last year, and two-time cham­pi­on, Jabloteh (1998 & 2005) kicks off at the Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya from 7 pm. Two hours be­fore their meet­ing, 2008 win­ner, Cale­do­nia AIA and De­fence Force Su­per League squad will meet in the oth­er re­main­ing round-of-16 match. How­ev­er, all eyes will be glued on the sec­ond match as two of the Dig­i­cel Pro League's heavy­weights lock horns. Over the years, both teams have fought out tense bat­tles, but in FA Tro­phy match­es, Jabloteh holds the edge with a 1-0 win in the 1998 fi­nal fol­lowed by a sim­i­lar 1-0 win in the 2006 quar­ter­fi­nals in their two meet­ings.

How­ev­er, while Joe Pub­lic, win­ner of the re­cent First Cit­i­zens Cup has man­aged to gain some mo­men­tum in the league in re­cent time to climb in­to sec­ond spot, Jabloteh, beat­en in the Lu­cozade Sports Goal Shield fi­nal al­ready this sea­son has strug­gled. For tonight's en­counter, Joe Pub­lic coach Derek King will wel­come back the na­tion­al trio of club cap­tain Ker­ry Bap­tiste, goal­keep­er Mar­vin Phillip and vice-cap­tain Trent Noel from T&T's dis­mal Dig­i­cel Caribbean Cup Fi­nals in Mar­tinique cam­paign. In ad­di­tion to the So­ca War­riors' trio, speedy An­tigua and Bar­bu­dan for­ward Gayson Gre­go­ry is al­so ex­pect­ed to be in the Joe Pub­lic line-up af­ter his coun­try's ex­it from the tour­na­ment in Mar­tinique on Wednes­day night.

But de­fend­er Car­lyle Mitchell is a long term in­jury, hav­ing suf­fered frac­tured ribs in a league en­counter with Ma Pau last month and will be miss­ing for King. Mitchell has since un­der­gone surgery and his re­turn to ac­tion this sea­son is not cer­tain. On the oth­er hand, Jabloteh coach, for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Ter­ry Fen­wick will re­ly on his youth­ful line-up led by na­tion­al Un­der-20 play­ers Shel­don Bateau, Jer­rel Brit­to and Jo­han Pelti­er. In ad­di­tion, first team reg­u­lars, Robert Primus, Kar­lon Mur­ray, goal­keep­er Cleon John and vet­er­an leader Mar­vin Oliv­er should all be avail­able. The win­ner of the en­counter be­tween the East­ern Li­ons and Jabloteh will meet South­ern Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion's La Brea All Stars in the last-eight round.

With the re­turn of his in­ter­na­tion­al quar­tet, Den­sill Theobold and Daniel Cyrus, both from T&T team du­ties and Guyanese pair Shawn Beveney and Wal­ter Moore, coach Ja­mal Shabazz and his Cale­do­nia 'Stal­lions' should prove too much for De­fence Force's Su­per League squad. The win­ner of the Cale­do­nia/De­fence Force (Su­per) clash will meet Joe Pub­lic's Su­per League squad in next Fri­day's quar­ter­fi­nals. The oth­er clubs al­ready in the quar­ter­fi­nals are Dig­i­cel T&T Pro League lead­ers and six-time FA cham­pi­ons (1974, 1981, 1985, 1989, 1991 & 1996) De­fence Force, 2003 champs Di­recTV North East Stars, St Ann's Rangers and Ma Pau.

To­day's match­es

Venue: Mar­vin Lee Sta­di­um, Ma­coya

Cale­do­nia (Pro) vs De­fence Force (Su­per), 5pm.

San Juan Jabloteh (Pro) vs Joe Pub­lic (Pro), 7pm.

Quar­ter­fi­nals

Fri­day De­cem­ber 10:

Ma Pau (Pro) vs North East Stars (Pro)

Cale­do­nia/De­fence Force (Su­per) vs Joe Pub­lic (Su­per)

St Ann's Rangers vs De­fence Force (Pro)

La Brea All Stars vs Joe Pub­lic (Pro)/Jabloteh (Pro)