W/Warriors outdone 2-0 by Cerén El Salvador; Wired868 reviews T&T’s short-lived Brazil 2027 campaign

The Trinidad and Tobago Women’s National Senior Team relinquished their dream of appearing at the Brazil 2027 Fifa Women’s World Cup last night in Port of Spain, as they fell 2-0 to El Salvador in their closing Group F affair at the Hasely Crawford Stadium.

The Women Soca Warriors needed a win to advance to the Concacaf W Championship and retain a shot at qualification for the World Cup and the Los Angeles 2028 Summer Olympics.

And, remarkably, Trinidad and Tobago should have gone ahead after just 39 seconds, with midfielder Elise Franco hitting the bar with a close-range header.

Women Warriors Damian Briggs noted that there was a whiff of offside about El Salvador’s second goal, scored by forward and captain Brenda Cerén. In truth, Cerén might have been marginally offside for her first item too.

Yet, despite the fact that the hosts created good scoring opportunities and were a touch unlucky with both goals conceded, this should not take away from the fact that El Salvador were superior at a basic level.

The Central American nation qualified with 18 goals scored and none conceded in a group that also included Honduras. Surely that tells its own story.

By full time, El Salvador bettered Trinidad and Tobago in virtually every category: possession (58% to 42%), passes (394 to 286), passing accuracy (73% to 61%), passing accuracy in opponent’s half (64% to 45%), shots (25 to 9), shots inside the box (20 to 5)…

When a team takes 20 shots from inside your penalty box, you are entitled to a sigh of relief that you did not concede more than a half dozen items.

Trinidad and Tobago worked hard, but El Salvador were just better.

“It didn’t go the way we wanted it to go, but we fought to the end,” said Trinidad and Tobago defender Victoria Swift, at the post-game press conference.

Coach Damian Briggs expressed pride in his charges and satisfaction with their effort.

“The crowd stayed all the way through [to the final whistle],” said Briggs, “because they probably felt the energy and passion [of the team].”

Trinidad and Tobago supporters did not have to wait longer for encouragement. Virtually from the kick-off, midfielder Asha James released Aaliyah Prince down the right flank and Prince’s low cross picked out veteran forward Kennya “Yaya” Cordner in the box.

Cordner lost her footing and could not get a shot off, but midfielder Liana Hinds seized upon the loose ball and picked out Franco with a delicious cross.

Franco beat El Salvador goalkeeper Riley Melendez with her header—but not the crossbar.

“If we took the first two or three chances afforded to us earlier in the game,” said Briggs, “it might have been a different game.”

It is a reasonable assertion. But another football saying is never to read too much into what happens in the first five minutes of the game, when both teams are flushing out their nerves and a pattern has not yet been established.

And by the sixth minute, Trinidad and Tobago were on their heels with their guests stroking the ball around the west Port of Spain venue.

Flanker Danielle Fuentes sauntered inside off the left flank and made an audacious scooped pass to Cerén, whose lobbed effort rebounded off the bar.

And El Salvador continued to carve open opportunities, with Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Simone Eligon and her backline overworked.

“Elite football is 11 attackers and 11 defenders,” said El Salvador coach Eric Acuña, as he explained his philosophy after the contest.

Trinidad and Tobago, though, were trying to defend against 11 players with eight.

Certainly, Briggs’ front three of Cordner, Prince and Nikita Gosine did not do enough to close down El Salvador’s defenders, who played a key role in their attacks with accurate long-range passing.

Briggs insisted he was happy with the effort from all of his players and noted that he was wary of pressing their opponents, only for them to pass through them. But there was little question that Trinidad and Tobago rattled El Salvador far more when substitutes Sonia Lamarre and Nia Hislop brought additional energy to the team in those areas.

In the 36^th minute, Gosine failed to hold up the ball and, in transition, forward Yoselyn Lopez threaded a pass into Cerén’s path—and the El Salvador captain’s finish was emphatic.

Cerén looked like she might have been marginally offside. But you felt the goal was coming.

Nine minutes earlier, Gosine had a chance herself off a superb pass from James that she ran onto without breaking stride—only to fire over on her weaker left foot.

The Pleasantville Secondary student was Trinidad and Tobago’s most dangerous attacker last night. But she still has a lot to learn to better help her team at this level—such as how to take care of the ball to allow teammates time to advance up the field, and how to protect her defence by giving opponents less time to lift their heads and make lofted passes.

At the interval, Briggs replaced Prince with Lamarre. But the impact was marginal at first.

And El Salvador got their second goal in the 51^st minute, off a trademark deep, diagonal cross behind the left side of the Trinidad and Tobago defence.

Ke’die Johnson, a professional with France top flight club AS Saint-Étienne, normally operates at left back for the Women Warriors. But she was absent due to a concussion suffered on club duty, and Briggs started St Joseph’s Convent student Kaitlyn Darwent instead.

It should not be unkind, at this stage in the teenager’s career, to say that is a significant drop off in terms of know-how.

Darwent came up with at least two vital blocks over the 90 minutes. But, on that occasion, Cerén easily outfoxed her to score her team’s second goal.

Swift, notably, did not help Darwent’s cause by misreading the flight of the ball from the initial cross.

Acuña praised the speed and resilience of the Trinidad and Tobago team.

“Trinidad [and Tobago] has all the tools,” he said.

But when asked about how El Salvador managed to nullify the host team, Acuña went a bit further.

“Trinidad [and Tobago] has strength and speed but not intentionality,” he said. “Your attack has to be more intentional.”

One way to interpret that is the Women Warriors tried to make penetrative passes whenever and wherever they won the ball. Often, the attacking passes were made in the wrong areas of the pitch to give the recipients a chance to get onto the balls, let alone take on the opposing defence.

Whenever your team is starved of the ball for long periods, it creates an anxiety about making something happen when possession is regained, which can lead to bad decisions.

Hislop, the daughter of 2006 World Cup goalkeeper Shaka Hislop, was a notable exception, as she often sought to do what the team needed at the moment rather than attempting something overly ambitious or eye-catching.

It allowed Trinidad and Tobago to create some promising build-ups down the right flank, for the last half hour, and brought the best out of Lamarre as an attacking force.

“We managed the game in a better way,” said Acuña, when asked what factor was most crucial to their triumph.

Acuña surely enjoyed his trip to Trinidad more this year. Last April, he led El Salvador to a 4-0 win over Trinidad and Tobago in a Concacaf Women’s U-17 Championship qualifier at the Ato Boldon Stadium, with four second half goals, only to be suspended soon after the match.

Midfielder Makenna Zukeran complained that Acuña snatched the ribbons off her hair while “verbally abusing her” during a fiery halftime speech, with her mother promptly summoning the Trinidad and Tobago police to intervene.

The El Salvador Football Federation immediately suspended Acuña to investigate a potential safeguarding breach. Within a year, the coach has taken El Salvador to within 90 minutes of a World Cup.

Shawn Cooper was suspended from the Trinidad and Tobago Football Association (TTFA) more than a month earlier than Acuña, for nothing so extreme as to warrant police intervention.

God knows when Cooper’s chance of redemption will come.

Tonight, El Salvador displayed some of their coach’s relentlessness and exacting standards. Two goals ahead when only a draw would do, the visitors never stopped searching for a third.

“We have to find a way to win, always,” said Acuña.

How else, he asked, can El Salvador ever come close to Concacaf heavyweights like the United States and Canada if they do not try to match their ferocious ambitions?

“In Concacaf, there are stronger teams than us—champions of the world, Olympic champions,” said Acuña. “We are not close to them but we have to follow that path. We have to try to find a way [to win games at all times].”

El Salvador attacker Daniel Fuentes suggested that their spirited play was a compliment to Trinidad and Tobago.

“We respected [Trinidad and Tobago] by giving our all and leaving everything on the field,” said Fuentes. “We didn’t want to waste time or sit back… We were more focused on ourselves and perfecting our craft.”

El Salvador are chasing history.

For Trinidad and Tobago, it’s the end of another cycle. Their World Cup campaign lasted three matches, with just one home game.

How can Concacaf expect the women’s programme to grow when a nation can complete its entire series with a solitary home match?

USA and Canada can qualify for the Brazil World Cup with just one match—as both nations have byes to the W Championship quarterfinal stage.

Could Concacaf president Victor Montagliani possibly make the World Cup qualifying series any worse?

Briggs made a plea for more time at the helm.

“The El Salvador coach was with his players for six or seven years—I have had five or six months,” said Briggs. “Any programme that is going to have long term success must have some sort of continuity.

“[…] Rome wasn’t built in a day…”

Former Men’s National Senior Team head coach Dwight Yorke might wish him good luck with that.

Six months, three matches—and now what?

For what it’s worth, the Trinidad and Tobago Women gave a valiant effort. There is ability and personality within their ranks too.

“We had our challenges, but in spite of those challenges we think we did a good job,” said Swift. “[…] I hope that going forward we get more support.”

Briggs took the mic when Wired868 asked Swift to elaborate on the challenges that the Women Warriors endured and exactly what support they felt was most needed.

Hopefully they get it—whatever it is.

(Teams)

Trinidad and Tobago (4-2-3-1): 1.Simone Eligon (GK); 4.Emma Schneider, 12.Myla Schneider, 6.Victoria Swift, 22.Kaitlyn Darwent; 7.Liana Hinds (13.Gabrielle Williams 85), 8.Elise Franco (14.Summer Arjoon 61); 11.Aaliyah Prince (20.Sonia Lamarre 46), 23.Asha James (10.Alexcia Ali 74), 9.Nikita Gosine; 19.Kennya Cordner (captain) (16.Nia Hislop 61).

Unused substitutes: 18.Malaika Dedier (GK), 21.Akyla Walcott (GK), 2.Sakiah Williams, 3.Javanah Moreno, 5.Cicely Spencer Wickham, 15.Christa Waterman, 17.Ariana Borneo.

Coach: Damian Briggs.

El Salvador (4-4-2): 18.Riley Melendez (GK); 5.Andrea Amaya, 3.Vasthy Delgado, 4.Elaily Hernandez, 8.Victoria Sanchez; 15.Danya Gutierrez (16.Makenna Dominguez 78), 6.Alejandra Morales (12.Maggie Segovia 87), 19.Laila Saravia, 7.Danielle Fuentes (17.Samaria Gomez 87); 9.Yoselyn Lopez (11.Elizabeth Johannes 78), 10.Brenda Cerén (captain).

Unused substitutes: 1.Idalia Serrano (GK), 21.Samantha Valadez (GK), 13.Ashlin Fuentes, 14.Andrea Alvarenga, 20.Jackeline Velasquez, 22.Elyssa Hernandez, 23.Jasmine Dybala.

Coach: Eric Acuña.

Concacaf W Championship qualifier

(Friday 17 April)

Trinidad and Tobago 0, El Salvador 2 (Brenda Cerén 36, 50) at Hasely Crawford Stadium.