Caribbean Cup: Aruba 1-0 Turks & Caicos Islands

Friday 30^th May 2014

Caribbean Cup Qualifier Preliminary Round Group Two

Trinidad Stadium, Oranjestad, Aruba

 Despite the huge gulf in world rankings between the two sides, the Turks & Caicos Islands put up an impressive showing in their opening group match in Oranjestad.  Playing against the host nation Aruba, our intrepid islanders gave as good as they got in a closely fought contest.

The only goal came after 28 minutes when Emile Linkers broke free through the middle and scored with a tidy finish lobbed over the onrushing Turks & Caicos keeper Raymondson Azimard.

By that stage Turks & Caicos had already had to substitute their main striker Gavin Glinton through injury, replacing him with Stevens Derilien after just 20 minutes.  Chasing the game late on, they failed to create anything too clear cut in spite of the introduction of record goal scorer Philip Shearer for a final flurry.

Brief highlights can be seen here:

The Turks & Caicos Islands line up was as follows:

Raymondson Azemard, James Rene, Wildens Delva, Marc-donald Fenelus, Chris Gardiner, Jerry Liluce, Marco Fenelus, Jack McKnight (Philip Shearer, 78), Paul Collis (Kelly Louima, 61), Fred Dorvil, Gavin Glinton (Stevens Derilien, 20).

In the other match French Guiana made their credentials clear with a stonking 6-0 win over the British Virgin Islands.  A nice easy task coming up for Turks and Caicos in their next match then.