Dexter Cyrus, coach of T&T Premier Football League (TTPFL) 2025/2026 Tier I Division third-place finisher T&T Prison Service FC, has put his team's exit from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Shield down to too many mistakes. Prison Service fell 4-3 to Guyana's Slingerz FC in the round of 16 at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Mucurapo, Port-of-Spain, on Saturday night.
It was the first match for Prisons at the CFU level, and also the first of the 22-team tournament after they were handed a round-of-32 bye. Meanwhile, Slingerz FC, coached by T&T's Jamaal Shabazz, was coming off a 4-0 beating of SWA Sharks FC of Turks & Caicos at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva on Thursday in the last-32.
For the Guyanese club, Kemar Beckford scored a pair of goals, while Neron Barrow and T&T's Derrel Garcia added one each in the win over Prisons, matching their output from the opening win of the competition. Ronell Paul, Ezekiel Kezar, and Kevon Williams got a goal each for the local club.
Reflecting on the loss, Cyrus, a former national striker, was quick to admit that scoring three goals in a knockout encounter and letting in four is a recipe for an early exit.
He said, "I think if you score that many goals and concede four, you don't deserve to win any match. They (Slingerz) made us work hard to score our three goals, but in return, I think we let in three soft goals. A lot of things were very uncharacteristic in how we played on the day."
Cyrus pointed to Slingerz FC's third goal, scored by Barrow, saying, "We normally don't play for offside or normally set offside traps, and that fact that we decided to play that way, was a bad decision in the moment, and even though I still believe the player was offside, it led to a goal."
"We could also attrbute a lot of individual mistakes and poor decision making towards the goals, and it showed that we are babes at this level of competition. There are levels to football, and for us as a club, this was our first time competing at the CFU level, so it was a learning experience for us a team, and we have to learn from it and move forward."
Cyrus also highlighted the fact that the match against Slingerz was the first competitive outing for his team since the end of the 2025/2026 TTPFL Tier I season four months ago.
"Since the end of the last season, we have only played a few pre-season matches, namely against Club Sando and Defence Force, and going into these tournaments you need to be at a higher level of fitness that what we are used too locally, so we will learn, and move forward," said Cyrus.
With the win, Slingerz FC set up a quarterfinal meeting with SV Robinhood of Suriname, who blanked St Lucia's La Clery 2-0 in their round-of-16 encounter on Saturday night at Mucurapo.
Yesterday, in the final set of round-of-16 matches, Helenites SC of the US Virgin Islands won by default over Baltimore SC at the Larry Gomes Stadium in Malabar, Arima while Metropolitan dumped St Vincent and the Grenadines’ North Leeward Predators FC 4-0.
In Mucurapo, CVV Inter Willemstad spanked St John's FC of Grenada 5-2, with the latter finishing the contest with ten men, while Delfines del Este and Elite Sports Club clashed in the late encounter.
The quarterfinals are carded for Tuesday ahead of the semifinals on Friday and the championship match on August 2. The top two teams will qualify for this year’s Concacaf Caribbean Cup, which also serves as a qualifier for the Concacaf Champions Cup.
Yesterday's results (Round-of-16)
Venue: Larry Gomes Stadium, Malabar
Match #5: Helenites SC (US Virgin Islands) 3 vs Baltimore SC (Haiti) 0 - by default
Match #6: Metropolitan (Puerto Rico) 4 vs North Leeward Predators FC (St Vincent) 0
Venue: Hasely Crawford Stadium, Mucurapo
Match #7: CVV Inter Willemstad (Curaçao) 5 vs St John's SC (Grenada) 2
