There was a lot to play for in the KFC Goodwill International Tournament on Wednesday with spots in the semifinal on the line. Before the day’s action began, 5 teams potentially had the opportunity to seal a spot in the acclaimed final four but in the end, defending champions Clarendon College, Annai Secondary and St. Benedict’s College pulled off victories to advance to the semifinals.
Meanwhile, in spite of suffering a loss on Wednesday night, Chase’s Academic Foundation had already done enough in their first two games to secure a spot in the last four.
A look at the action between Chase’s Academic Foundation (Blue) and St. Benedict’s College
Annai Secondary, desperately needing a win to advance ahead of Tobago’s Speyside High, punished Dolphin Secondary with an 8-1 drubbing. Sudesh Persaud led the charge with a helmet trick in the 5th, 56th, 80th and 81st minutes. While Adrian Cabral (7th, 66th) had a brace, Josh Glasgow (2nd) and Matthias John (76th) netted one goal each.
Dolphin Secondary’s goal keeper Brian Brower had netted their consolation in the 19th minute.
Also at Queen’s College ground, D. C. Caesar Fox (Waramadong) Secondary exited the competition in style, defeating Suriname’s Henry Hassankhan Community School 10-5, in what can only be described as a goal fest.
Stephon George (5th, 12th) netted the first of his brace in the 5th minute to open the scoring and later made it a 2-0 affair. Lot Granes tripled D.C Caesar Fox’ lead in the 13th and then Kemron Thomas began his hattrick campaign. Thomas found the back of the net in the 36th, 56th and 90th minutes while Dominic Elliman (53rd, 86th) and Jim Carter (51st, 82nd) both found the back of the net twice.
For the Surinamese school, Quency Van Rhemen (37th, 50th) and Joshua Mohali (39th, 61st) both struck twice and Cylfano Misaine had their fifth goal.
Later on, at the Ministry of Education Ground, Tobago’s Speyside High fiercely challenged the defending champions with the intention of securing positive result that could have paved their way to the semis but the Clarendon managed to eek out a 2-1 win in the dying minutes of the game.
Terron Williams finally broke the ice between the two in the 74th minute, but Speyside’s Milz Johnson equalised in the 92nd. Just a minute later, Roshaun Sterling would find the game- winner for Clarendon.
While reflecting on the tournament thus far, Clarendon Coach Kemar Foster appreciated the challenge his team met on Wednesday night and promised good football in today’s semis.
“The tournament is great. I like it, it’s an international tournament, it give our kids some great exposure to international level. The tournament is really high, if you watched the game was really tight today, I like it for the players,” Foster shared.
The Jamaican Coach went on to share about today’s semis, “I wouldn’t say smooth sailing, football play on the day, you don’t know what can happen but I can guarantee you we will come out and play and play our best football.”
The final game of the group stage saw St. Benedict’s College getting the better of Chase’s Academy, 3-0, in a hotly contested encounter. Both having their fair share of chances, Chase’s Academic Foundation held off their challengers and look on their way to a draw that would see them topping their group. However, a Camron Burke strike in the 80th for St. Benedict’s divided the two teams. That goal was followed up by an Adam Pierre double in the 83rd and 90th minutes resulting in the 3-0 loss for Chase.
Ruing the loss, Chase’s Coach Levi Brathwaite chalked it up to a lack of concentration but expressed an intention to flip the script on Clarendon, who they met in last year’s semifinals also.
Brathwaite opined about his team’s outing on Wednesday, “Basically, they normally do it well throughout the tournaments they had before, even in the two previous games but I think, it’s just lack of concentration for tonight’s game. Hope going forward, they can correct that as well.”
“Most obviously, we’re here to win. So, we gotta out with a high spirit, despite tonight’s loss. Nevertheless, I’m going to lift the spirit of the team and hope that they perform to there best from which we can get the results that we need,” the Chase’s Academic Foundation Coach further stated, regarding heading into the semifinals.
On the other hand, St. Benedict’s Coach Randolph Boyce dissected his team’s performance, noting that they will be taking it one game at a time.
“Well Chase really played a good game, offensively and defensively. The game was even balanced up until, as you said, the 70 something minute. We just tell them to keep focused, keep discipline, keep doing what we doing cause we saw some little areas that we could attack and we could penetrate and eventually it paid off for us,” the ST. Bendict’s Coach explained.
Boyce added about avoiding Clarendon College in the semifinals again, “Definitely but we take one game at a time. We have a semifinal against us, I think it’s Annai. They’re a good, little playing team so, we can’t look at the finals as yet, we’d have to deal with them on Friday. So, we just have to take it one game at a time until then.”
The KFC semifinals are scheduled for today at MoE Ground, where St. Benedict’s will take on Annai Secondary at 17:30hrs while Chase and Clarendon will clash at 19:30hrs for a spot in Sunday’s final.
Meanwhile, Trophy Stall has been announced as another addition to the tournament’s long list of sponsors. The entity will be providing supporting trophies for the tournament’s runner- ups and individual accolade.
“The Petra Organisation is happy for the support from Ramesh Sunich’s Trophy Stall. This tournament has provided a platform for our young footballers to compete with the best teams in the Caribbean and it can only bode well for them. As such, we are very thankful for this support,” the Organisers said in a brief statement about the recent sponsorship.
