De­vorn Jorsling, coach of T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I cham­pi­ons T&T De­fence Force Elite, says the on­ly way his team will tru­ly ben­e­fit from Ja­maica’s Cav­a­lier FC drop­ping more points in the Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup is if they come away with points when both teams meet next month.

On Thurs­day last, de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons Cav­a­lier FC played to a 1-1 draw against Haiti’s Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes in Group B at Sabi­na Park in Kingston, Ja­maica.

For the reign­ing cham­pi­ons, Shamar Wat­son scored the open­er in the 18th minute, but Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes equalised in the 77th minute when Pe­ter­son Sei­de’s free kick at­tempt kissed off the cross­bar in­to the net.

With the drawn re­sult, Cav­a­lier se­cured its first point in the five-team group round-robin se­ries af­ter two match­es, the same as the Haitians, while Bar­ba­di­an Wey­mouth Wales are bot­tom of the stand­ings with­out a point.

At the top is the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Cibao FC with a max­i­mum six points af­ter fol­low­ing up their 2-0 open­ing-day win over Cav­a­lier with a 2-1 tri­umph over Wey­mouth Wales, while T&T De­fence Force Elite is sec­ond with three points from their lone match, a 1-0 home tri­umph over Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes cour­tesy of a Kevin Moli­no strike on Au­gust 21 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo.

Cav­a­lier FC will seek its first win of the cam­paign on Sep­tem­ber 17 at home to T&T De­fence Force Elite, while a day lat­er Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes will meet Wey­mouth Wales.

Com­ment­ing on the drawn en­counter in Ja­maica, Jorsling, a for­mer T&T and De­fence Force strik­er who was pro­mot­ed to the head coach­ing role af­ter Den­sill Theobald re­signed abrupt­ly last month af­ter lead­ing the team to the 2024/2025 sea­son league and knock­out dou­ble while go­ing un­beat­en, said it was a good re­sult.

How­ev­er, the De­fence Force coach said it will on­ly re­al­ly be a pos­i­tive for his play­ers if they can do their part to en­hance their chance of a top two fin­ish in the pool to reach the semi­fi­nals.

The 41-year-old Jorsling, the all-time lead­ing scor­er in the T&T Pro League with a 140-plus goal, said, “That re­sult will on­ly be a great re­sult for us if we can go over to Ja­maica and get a win when we meet Cav­a­lier FC or come away with a point at least.

“But we know it won’t be an easy task, be­cause they are the de­fend­ing cham­pi­ons and will be play­ing at home. The backs are against the wall, and they have to win to stay in the tour­na­ment, so we know it will be a dif­fi­cult game.’

Look­ing at his team’s open­ing win over Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes, Jorsling said,

It was a good game for his team.

“It was an eye-open­er to see that we are now play­ing at a dif­fer­ent lev­el of com­pe­ti­tion, and I thought as a team we did well.”

“For the most part the guys ex­e­cut­ed the game play, and the on­ly thing I felt dis­ap­point­ed about was that I thought we were al­so a bit waste­ful in front of goal.”

With the new do­mes­tic sea­son yet to kick off, Jorsling ad­mit­ted that the CCC could prove to be a very dif­fi­cult com­pe­ti­tion for his team. “

“The per­sons in charge of our do­mes­tic league may need to look in­to a change in sched­ul­ing when our league starts and ends, be­cause not be­ing in com­pe­ti­tion makes it dif­fi­cult for play­ers to be match-ready in terms of sharp­ness and match fit­ness, as com­pared to the oth­er teams, who are cur­rent­ly in their sea­sons.”

Fol­low­ing the match against Cav­a­lier FC, T&T De­fence Force Elite, which lift­ed the Caribbean Con­ca­caf Club ti­tle back in 2001, will next host Wey­mouth Wales on Sep­tem­ber 25 at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, at 8pm in Week Four, be­fore end­ing round-robin play away to Cibao FC of the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic on Oc­to­ber 1 at Es­ta­dio Cibao FC, San­ti­a­go de los Ca­balleros, Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, from 8pm as well.

Cen­tral FC is the oth­er T&T club in the com­pe­ti­tion and cur­rent­ly sixth in a two-way tie with Suri­name’s SV Robin­hood with a point each from two match­es af­ter they bat­tled to a 2-2 draw in their Week Two meet­ing in Para­mari­bo, Suri­name, last week.

This was af­ter Cen­tral FC went un­der to the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s O&M FC 2-0 in their open­ing match, while Ja­maica’s Mount Pleas­ant Foot­ball Acad­e­my leads the ta­ble with a max­i­mum six points from two match­es, with the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Mo­ca FC in the cel­lar spot with­out a point.

Cen­tral FC re­turns to ac­tion on Sep­tem­ber 16 when they en­ter­tain Mo­ca FC, the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Shield win­ners, at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, from 8 pm be­fore host­ing Ja­maica’s Wray & Nephew Pre­mier League run­ner-up Mount Pleas­ant Foot­ball Acad­e­my (Mount Pleas­ant FA) at Mu­cu­rapo on Sep­tem­ber 23.

At the con­clu­sion of the group stage round robin, the top two teams will qual­i­fy for the crossover home-and-away semi­fi­nals, with the two group win­ners host­ing the re­turn-leg match­es.

For both the third-place match and the fi­nal, the re­turn-leg match­es will be host­ed by the high­er-ranked club in each pair­ing, de­ter­mined by the to­tal points ac­cu­mu­lat­ed through­out the com­pe­ti­tion.

At the end of the com­pe­ti­tion, three clubs, the two fi­nal­ists and the third-place win­ner, will qual­i­fy for the 2026 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons Cup.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the Caribbean cham­pi­on will earn a di­rect bye to the round-of-16.

Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup stand­ings

Group A

Teams*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

Cibao FC*2*2*0*0*4*1*6

De­fence Force*1*1*0*0*1*0*3

Ju­ven­tus Des Cayes*2*0*1*1*1*2*1

Cav­a­lier*2*0*1*1*1*3*1

Wey­mouth Wales*1*0*0*1*1*2*0

Group B

Mount Pleas­ant*2*2*0*0*3*0*6

O&M FC*1*1*0*0*2*0*3

SV Robin­hood*2*0*1*1*2*3*1

Cen­tral FC*2*0*1*1*2*4*1

Mo­ca FC*1*0*0*1*0*2*0