De­spite the lack of com­pet­i­tive foot­ball in T&T, coach An­gus Eve’s men pro­duced two dis­ci­plined per­for­mances that earned them a 1-0 tri­umph in the two-match se­ries against Ja­maica in two in­ter­na­tion­al friend­ly match­es in Ja­maica.

Eve cred­its the pro­fes­sion­al ap­proach of his play­ers, cou­pled with their will to fight for the re­sults.

Be­fore the en­coun­ters, Eve said the Ja­maicans would have had the ad­van­tage, due to their vi­brant foot­ball league, cou­pled with the fact that they were ex­pect­ed to field be­tween sev­en to eight for­eign-based play­ers.

How­ev­er, this was far from re­al­i­ty as the So­ca War­riors edged their op­po­nents 1-0 cour­tesy of a Re­on Moore 67th-minute item in the first game on Sat­ur­day last. Then they pro­duced a dis­ci­plined dis­play on Tues­day to hold the Ja­maicans 0-0, with most of the clear-cut chances falling in their gar­den.

Eve in the post­match in­ter­view on Tues­day was high in praise for his lads.

“I thought we put in a good pro­fes­sion­al per­for­mance from a de­fen­sive stand­point un­til we made changes in the mid­field.

"Some of the guys who played in the first game, we saw that com­po­sure come in­to the game, and then we start to pass the ball and start to cre­ate some chances. Oth­er than that I felt we played a Eu­ro­pean-type team to­day.

"They were hit­ting a lot of long balls in­to the strik­ers and they were try­ing to play the balls from the flanks and we stood up well to that type of Eu­ro­pean tac­tic. All-in-all, I thought it was a good ex­er­cise for us, on ag­gre­gate, we won the se­ries 1-0.”

Eve ad­mit­ted, how­ev­er, it was not an easy task against a strong Ja­maican team which is coached by an in­ter­na­tion­al coach. “They (Ja­maicans) were bril­liant be­cause we changed the whole squad from the first match, ex­cept for three guys.

"We didn’t have re­dun­dan­cies in the de­fen­sive po­si­tions so we played the same guys at the back, and they were ex­cel­lent for two games and they kept a clean sheet on two oc­ca­sions.

"And now, a counter-at­tack­ing game that we played, be­cause we know our guys were not ful­ly match-fit, so we had to be smart in the way we played the match to­day and we played how we want­ed to play, we played on the counter-at­tack and you saw where we could have fin­ished off the match in the end,” Eve ex­plained.

The T&T team will next face the Ba­hamas away on March 24 be­fore they clash with Nicaragua on March 27 to com­plete the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League. The War­riors need to win Group C to be pro­mot­ed from the group, as well as qual­i­fy for the CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup.

The Nicaraguans lead the group with 10 points. T&T is on eight points.

T&T TEAM

Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 4. Josi­ah Trim­ming­ham, 6. Ka­reem Ri­ley, 7. Noah Pow­der, 10. Kadeem Corbin, 12. Jameel Nep­tune, 13. Re­on Moore, 16. Alvin Jones, 17. Justin Gar­cia, 18. Matthew Woo Ling, 20. Jo­mal Williams.

Subs

Je­lani Fe­lix, 3. Jo­evin Jones, 5. An­dre Ray­mond, 8. Michel Poon Angeron, 9. Nathaniel James, 11. Jamoul Fran­cois, 14. John-Paul Rochford, 15. Kaile Au­vray, 19. Que­si We­st­on, 21. Den­zil Smith, 22. Adri­an Fon­cette (GK), 23. Jesse Williams, 24. Justin Sadoo

JA­MAICA TEAM

Ri­car­do Thomas, 7. Lamar Walk­er, 8. De­mario Phillips, 12. Du­juan Richards, 13. Jah­mali Waite (GK), 17. Jah­saun An­glin, 18. Omari Hutchin­son, 19. Adri­an Mari­ap­pa, 20. Dex­ter Lem­bik­isa, 24. Jamoi Topey, 25. Collin An­der­son

Subs

, 1. Ke­mar Fos­ter (GK), 2. Al­wayne Har­vey, 3. Dwayne Atkin­son, 4. Tyler Roberts, 6. Richard King, 9. Trivante Stew­art, 10. Rav­el Mor­ri­son, 11. Jour­dain Fletch­er, 14. Sue-Lae Mc­Calla, 15. Os­hane Sta­ple, 21. De­lano Splatt, 22. Fitzroy Cum­mings, 23. Hutchin­son (GK).