HOUSTON – Trinidad and Tobago earned a point in a 1-1 draw against fellow Caribbean nation, Haiti, despite the Soca Warriors being a man up for the entire second half. The match was the Caribbean nations’ second Gold Cup group game and is their first point of the tournament.
Haiti came out on the front foot, catching Trinidad and Tobago flat-footed and still adjusting to the game. Trinidad and Tobago head coach Dwight Yorke said his side knew the problems Haiti could cause its opponent, especially on the wings. But knowing Haiti’s strengths and stopping them are two different things.
“The first half, the players found it difficult to get going. We couldn’t get a foothold into the game,” said Yorke. “I have to give Haiti a lot of credit in terms of how they played.”
Yorke added that the Haitian side pushed his team so far back towards their goal that they couldn’t deal with Haiti’s long ball.
Haiti would hand Trinidad and Tobago an advantage minutes before halftime when center back Jean-Kevin Duverne received a straight red card for denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity when he tackled Trinidad and Tobago’s Levi Garcia in the 39th minute.
Despite being a man down, Haiti started the second half much like the first, looking for the score. It got reward for its effort when Don Deedson Louicius’s cross found Frantzdy Pierrot in the box. The center forward one-timed a shot past the Soca Warrior’s keeper to break the draw.
Conceding after getting an advantage is now how Yorke saw the game playing out.
“Once they got their man sent off, we felt like the advantage should swing in our favor, but then, of course, to concede, it knocks you back a little bit,” said Yorke.
“But I thought the reaction from my players towards the end, once we made the substitution of the captain [Kevin] Molino, and the production of Real Gill, and those guys, really turned the game on its head for us.”
The Soca Warriors’ head coach is spot on.
Molino’s forward-thinking play earned his side a free kick some 30 yards from goal. He followed that up by serving a cross on a platter to the back post, where center back Justin Garcia headed into the back of the net to level the game.
Tridad and Tobago would continue to pressure a tired Haiti, but neither side could find a way to grab the lead until the waning moments of regular time. Haitian defender Wilguens Paugain earned a penalty in the 86th minute when he was brought down just inside the box.
Mondy Prunier stepped to the spot, fooled the keeper into going the wrong way, but sailed his shot over the crossbar.
“Even though we’re a bit fortunate with the penalty miss against us, we felt that we’d done enough to get at least a point from the game,” said Yorke. “It would have been a little bit harsh, in our point of view, if we hadn’t come away with something, especially with the advantage in our favor in the second half.”
The draw keeps Trinidad and Tobago in play to advance to the second round, while a loss would have dashed those hopes. That’s the takeaway Yorke is taking from the game.
Trinidad and Tobago (0-1-1, 1 point) finish group play Sunday when they face off against Saudi Arabia (1-0-1, 3 points) while Haiti (0-1-1, 1 point) takes on the United States (2-0-0, 6 points). The top two teams from each group advance to the second round.
Jesus Acevedo Jr. is the Editor-in-Chief of The Bayoucitian. He’s an award-winning bilingual journalist from Houston, TX. A graduate of the University of Houston, he has written for the Houston Chronicle, La Voz de Houston, MLSsoccer.com, and ProSoccerUSA.
Before becoming a journalist, Jesus spent his early 20s drumming his way across Houston with two bands — Shortcomings and InsertNameHere. The memories that Jesus made as a musician were the seeds that started the idea for the comedy, Houmans: The Series.