Nicaragua held T&T to a 1-1 tie that sent them through as the Group A win­ner in the CON­CA­CAF re­gion and an au­to­mat­ic qual­i­fi­ca­tion to the 2024 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup on Mon­day night at the Dwight Yorke Sta­di­um in Ba­co­let, To­ba­go.

It was a dag­ger in­to the heart of the T&T fans who went there ex­pect­ing T&T to ex­act re­venge on the team that de­feat­ed them in their open­ing match of the CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League in Man­agua in June, last year.

With just the top team ad­vanc­ing, both teams took a cau­tious ap­proach in the open­ing mo­ments, un­til Kaile Au­vray sprung a sur­prise by split­ting the Nicaraguan de­fense with a through-ball to Ke­ston Julien. How­ev­er, Julien’s cen­tre was turned wide by Run­dell Win­ches­ter in the 13th minute.

But Nicaragua who went in­to the game with a one-point ad­van­tage on 13 points to the So­ca War­riors’ 12, drew first blood af­ter a pe­ri­od of cau­tious­ness. Ar­i­anger Smith rose un­chal­lenged to head home a per­fect­ly lift­ed cross for a 1-0 lead in the 27th minute.

Au­vray’s trick­ery pose a tremen­dous dan­ger for the Nicaraguan de­fense but the equalis­er came in the 40th minute af­ter Ryan Telfer was hacked down in the area and the ref­er­ee point­ed to the penal­ty spot. Cap­tain Jo­evin Jones then calm­ly hit the ball pow­er­ful­ly past the Nicaraguan goalie for a 1-1 score that they took to the half-time in­ter­val.

Fol­low­ing the re­sump­tion, it was an open bat­tle by both teams. Nicaragua al­most forced the ball in from an ac­ro­bat­ic at­tempt from Kevin Ser­a­pio as the ball struck the T&T up­right with Fren­derup seem­ing­ly un­con­cerned in the 49th minute.

Two min­utes lat­er, Au­vray turned past two de­fend­ers on the left side but his cen­tre could not reach the wait­ing legs of sub­sti­tute Re­on Moore.

Again the Nicaraguans could have scored in the 59th minute, as Jaime Moreno gal­loped on to a through ball that put him on a one-on-one with Fren­derup, but his at­tempt to lift the ball over the ad­vanc­ing goalie was fist­ed wide. T&T ap­peared to have lost con­trol of the mid­field which the Nicaraguans ex­ploit­ed.

And they might have got­ten the win­ner in the 71st when Moreno was fed with a through ball by Ma­tias Mold­skred, but with on­ly Fren­derup, Bel­li hit it wide of the tar­get.

T&T got a goal in time added on time from sub­sti­tute Mar­cus Joseph but then the ref­er­ee said it was a hand­ball.

Re­sult

T&T 1 (Jo­evin Jones 42nd pen) vs Nicaragua 1 (Ariag­n­er Smith 27th).

Group C Fi­nal Ta­ble

Pl*P*W*D*L*Pts

1*Nicaragua*6*4*2*0*14

2*T&T*6*4*1*1*13

3*Ba­hamas*6*1*1*4*4

4*St Vin­cent/G*6*0*2*4*2

Squads

T&T

Start­ing eleven: 21.Nick­las Fren­derup (GK),2. Aubrey David, 3.Jo­evin Jones (cap­tain), 5.An­dre Ram­per­sad, 7.Ryan Telfer, 9.Michel Poon-Angeron,12. Ka­reem Moses, 14.Shan­non Gomez, 15.Kaile Au­vray, 19.Run­dell Win­ches­ter, 19. Ke­ston Julien.

Subs: 1.Mar­vin Phillip (GK), 22.Den­zil Smith (GK), 17.Justin Gar­cia, 20.Mo­lik Khan, 16. Alvin Jones, 4. Le­land Archer, 18. Tris­ton Hodge; 8.Daniel Phillips, Jo­mal Williams, 6.Noah Pow­der, 10.Mar­cus Joseph, 11.John-Paul Rochford, 13.Re­on Moore,

Coach: An­gus Eve

Nicaragua

12. Miguel Ro­driguez (GK), 2. Jo­sue Qui­jano, 3. Os­car Aceve­do, 4. Er­ick Tellez, 5. Mar­vin Fletes, 6. Luis Fer­an­n­do Copote, 7. Ariag­n­er Smith, 9. Jaime Moreno, 11. Juan Bar­rera (cap­tain), 17. Ma­tias Mold­skred, 20. Kevin Ser­a­pio.

Subs: 10. By­ron Bonil­la, 1. Aly­er Lopez (GK),15. Melvin Her­nan­dez, 21. Fran­cis­co Flo­res, 8. Jonathan Mon­ca­da, 16. Harold Med­i­na, 24. Ab­n­er Acu­na, 13. Hen­ry Gar­cia, 18. Luis Coro­nel, 22. Brayan Lopez. 14. Ja­son Coro­nel.

Coach: Mar­co Figueroa Mon­tero.