Trinidad and To­ba­go were brought back down to earth when they suf­fered a 3-0 loss to Ecuador at the Es­ta­dio Reales Tamarindos in Man­ta, Ecuador, on Thurs­day night.

Ecuador got a sec­ond half brace from mid­field­er En­ner Va­len­cia (71st & 85th) and an­oth­er from Alan Fran­co (29th) to seal their win and give T&T coach Den­nis Lawrence more to think about ahead of their cru­cial CON­CA­CAF Na­tions League clash against Hon­duras in San Pe­dro Su­la on Sun­day.

In the first half, Ecuador were pre­sent­ed with time and space to move the ball as they wished dur­ing the ear­ly ex­changes but on­ly caused any re­al mo­ment of wor­ry for the T&T de­fence when left full-back Diego Pala­cios’ shot pin-balled off T&T cen­tre-backs Car­lyle Mitchell and Daneil Cyrus and out for a cor­ner kick.

T&T were then forced in­to a 24th minute sub­sti­tu­tion as cap­tain Khaleem Hy­land pulled up un­der a chal­lenge from Re­na­to Ibar­rra. Coach Lawrence ad­just­ed his mid­field by in­tro­duc­ing At­u­al­lah Guer­ra to play in the num­ber 10 role just be­hind the strik­ers and brought An­dre For­tune in­to a deep­er po­si­tion along­side Aaron Lester.

For­tune’s mis­take gift­ed Ecuador a chance in the 26th minute. A pass from the left of the field in­tend­ed for Mitchell was in­ter­cept­ed by Michael Estra­da, who spot­ted goal­keep­er Nick­las Fren­derup off his line and at­tempt­ed an au­da­cious chip from 30 yards. But the T&T cus­to­di­an was equal to the task and made the save be­fore clear­ing his lines.

How­ev­er, Fren­derup was left help­less in the 30th minute when Re­na­to Ibar­ra worked a pass in­to Michael Estra­da from the right flank. Estra­da then blew past Mekeil Williams and pro­vid­ed a cut­back to Fran­co who scored from six yards out.

Ecuador could have dou­bled the lead in the 37th minute as Pala­cios' pass over the top in­tend­ed for Ibar­ra in­vit­ed Fren­derup way off his line. His clear­ance fell to Estra­da, who worked an ex­change with Ibar­ra but the fi­nal shot was straight at Fren­derup who made a save with his feet.

One minute lat­er, T&T got be­hind the Ecuado­ri­an de­fence for the first time as Nathan Lewis turned his de­fend­er on the right side and raced in­to the penal­ty area. How­ev­er, he hes­i­tat­ed to make a pass with at least two T&T lay­ers wait­ing in­side the six-me­tre box and al­lowed Pala­cios to re­cov­er and con­cede a cor­ner.

On the re­sump­tion, both teams pressed for a goal. Williams came close when he had a shot from just in­side the penal­ty area saved by Ecuador goalie Jo­han Padil­la in the 68th minute.

How­ev­er, it was the home side who went in­to fur­ther ahead in the 71st minute. Fol­low­ing a move down the right flank mid­field­er An­gel Mena worked his way in­to the six me­tre box area and at­tempt­ed a cross as he was about to run out of field which was in­ad­ver­tent­ly han­dled by Williams. Va­len­cia then sent goalie Fren­derup the wrong way with a right-foot­ed spot kick to in­crease the lead to 2-0.

The home side was gift­ed their third goal five min­utes from time thanks to a de­fen­sive er­ror from Mitchell. Af­ter col­lect­ing a pass from goalie Fren­derup, Mitchell sent his in­tend­ed pass up the right flank straight at left-winger Caice­do, who ac­cept­ed it and fed an ac­cu­rate pass to Va­len­cia, who then beat the T&T goalie with a right-foot­er from the cen­tre of the penal­ty area.

Score:

ECUADOR 3 (Alan Fran­co 29’, En­ner Va­len­cia 71’ PEN, 85th) v T&T 0

ECUADOR: Jo­han Padil­la, Xavier Ar­rea­ga (Moi­ses Coro­zo 74'), Félix Tor­res, Diego Pala­cios, Bryan Cara­balí, Se­bastián Mén­dez, Án­gel Mena (Ale­jan­dro Cabeza 76'), Alan Fran­co (Jor­dan Sier­ra 58’), Michael Estra­da (En­ner Va­len­cia 58’), Ro­mario Ibar­ra (Mar­cos Caica­do 43’), Re­na­to Ibar­ra (Joao Ro­jas López 67')

T&T: Nick­las Fren­derup, Daneil Cyrus (Shel­don Bateau 45’), Car­lyle Mitchell, Mekeil Williams, Alvin Jones, An­dre For­tune (Matthew Woo Ling 80’), Khaleem Hy­land (Ataullah Guer­ra 24’), Aaron Lester, Dan­ny Carr (Jo­moul Fran­cois 61’), Ross Rus­sell, Nathan Lewis (Ryan Telfer 63')