Trinidad and Tobago's Under-23 footballers pulled off a sensational 9-1 victory over Suriname on Monday night in St Kitts to clinch a place in the CONCACAF Final Round of Olympic qualification in the United States next March.
After going down 5-2 to hosts St Kitts/Nevis on Saturday, T&T went into their final encounter needing to win by at least six clear goals to have any hope of securing one of the two qualifying spots and they delivered the goods to prove their doubters wrong, totally dominating a shell-shocked Suriname team who had opened with a 1-0 win over the home team on Thursday night, before losing 4-2 to Cuba.
The Cubans got a second half equaliser to hold the Kittitians 1-1 in Monday's second match to top the group with five points. Trinidad and Tobago ended on a plus-five goal difference and St Kitts on plus-two.
T&T and Cuba will now join hosts USA, Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Honduras and Panama in the final round from March 22-April 2 in Nashville, Kansas and Carson, USA.
The teams will be split into two groups, with the top two teams from each group moving on to the semi-final stage and the finalists advancing to the 2012 London Olympics. The draw for that tournament will be made shortly.
Following Trinidad and Tobago's disappointing showing on Saturday against the hosts, head coach Angus Eve appeared to have a mountainous task to prepare his players for a challenge that was not new to them.
They had to defeat Dominica by four clear goals to come out of the previous qualifying round and accomplished that convincingly. However, no one had expected a 5-2 loss to St Kitts, which was orchestrated mainly by English-born West Bromwich Albion midfielder Romain Sawyers.
But T&T's Kevin Molino had other things on his mind. The Orlando City midfielder was in ripping form, hitting a first half hat-trick to give Trinidad and Tobago a 4-0 cushion at the break. But the job was still far from over at that stage.
Eve maintained that his squad had the right depth and made seven changes to his starting XI from the one that lost to St Kitts. Coming into the team for the first time was Caledonia AIA defender Nuru Abdullah Muhammad, St Ann's Rangers' Kareem Moses and W Connection's Jomal Williams, while goalkeeper Andre Marchan retained his spot and FC Santa Rosa's Jean Luc Rochford, Micah Lewis and Jayson Joseph were also included.
Joseph was used in a right back position instead of his accustomed left midfield role.
Molino was pushed into the forward line to partner Jamal Gay after playing all the previous matches, dating back to last month's Pan American Games, in midfield. And he didn't fail to deliver.
Molino and Lewis combined perfectly and the Surinamese defence struggled to contain them. Molino opened T&T's account with a clinical finish from inside the box on a Lewis delivery. His other goals came in similar fashion, while Lewis put his name on the scoresheet when he connected well on a Joevin Jones cross.
Sean De Silva netted when he hit home on a rebound after his penalty kick was saved following a foul on Lewis. Molino then added his fourth after a build-up that left the Suriname defence in disarray.
Lewis added a second item while Gay scored his second and third goals of the tournament to push the T&T tally to a mark that left them in a comfortable position.
But they kept going at their opponents and the Surinamese goalkeeper had no less than nine good stops to make to prevent his team from falling further behind. Gay also missed his hat-trick near the end with a couple efforts being saved and narrowly missing the upright.
Eve was elated with the comeback performance, crediting belief and strong character for the swift response.
"We stayed positive and, as I said before, I believed in the ability of the players in this squad and I knew we were capable of better. I thought we could have been better against St Kitts but they were very much up for that match and they took their chances. Tonight it was our turn to turn it up a notch," Eve told Trinidad and Tobago Football Federation (TTFF) media officer Shaun Fuentes
"Almost everyone wrote us off, including the fans, but we've been here before and the boys knew that they had to dig deep if they wanted to stay alive. I trained with them in the session after the last game just to try and pick them up a bit and I opted for starting all the guys who didn't previously play in the tournament. I'm happy to say that everyone gave an excellent display tonight. It was like holding back a horse and just letting it loose in the case of the new boys," Eve added.
Goals were hard to come by despite the numerous chances that came T&T's way in the previous games and Eve went on to say: "Goalscoring has been a problem for us so for this game I opted to put Molino up front with Jamal Gay. Molino has an exceptional presence in midfield but the boys have always been wanting to get the ball to him because they love teaming up with him. So by pushing him up alongside Gay it meant that the ball would get closer to him near or around the 18-yard box and Gay kept winning all the high balls. Kevin was right there to latch on.
"I also said to them, using the AC Milan 4-0 win over Chievo on the weekend as an example, that we had a job to complete and we would do it goal by goal and play the game half by half. So we knew we wanted to be up by at least four goals in the first half and then we had another four or more to get in the second half. And with every goal the boys knew they had to pick the ball up and get it to the centre of the pitch to get going again."
T&T starting XI: Andre Marchan, Joevin Jones, Jeromie Williams, Jayson Joseph, Kareem Moses, Nuru Abdullah-Muhammad, Jomal Williams, Micah Lewis, Jean Luc Rochford, Kevin Molino, Jamal Gay.
Source: www.trinidadexpress.com