Caribbean Cup: Turks & Caicos Islands 0-6 French Guiana

Sunday 1^st June 2014

Caribbean Cup Qualifier Preliminary Round Group Two

Trinidad Stadium, Oranjestad, Aruba

Making just one change to the starting line up from an impressive opening showing against Aruba, Turks & Caicos were looking to continue their form against French Guiana.  Striker Stevens Derilien replaced the injured Gavin Glinton as he had done during the first half of the opening match.

French Guiana are not FIFA affiliated, being a part of France rather than in independent nation, and so the result from this match would have no bearing on Turks & Caicos Islands FIFA ranking.  Put in that context, if you’re going to get humped 6-0 you may as well do it against a team that won’t affect your ranking.  Had Turks & Caicos avoided defeat here it would have been frustrating to have still been rooted to the foot of the world rankings.

As it was, that fear was never likely to come true, although it shouod be said that he first half was relatively closely fought.  It took until the 29^th minute for French Guiana to make the breakthrough when Gabriel Pigrée gave the French the lead.  Just prior to that, Turks & Caicos had suffered the loss of midfielder Jack McKNight and crucially goalkeeper Raymondon Azemard, both of whom had to be replaced just a minute before French Guiana broke the deadlock.

The second half, however, saw an avalanche of goals as five more were added before the end including the completion of a hat-trick for Gabriel Pigrée in the final minute.  Not long before that Kely Louima had the dubious distinction to get on the score sheet for the wrong team.

As encouraging as the opening match with Aruba had been, this was a reversion to type sadly.  Better will be needed in the final, and winnable, match with the British Virgin Islands in two days time.  It will be important to at least see the return of Azemard in goal to provided a stint of solidity to the back line.

Some encouragement should be found in the fact that British Virgin Islands have lost both of their games too, but suffered far heavier losses.  They also lost 6-0 to French Guiana, but lost 7-0 to Aruba.

Turks & Caicos Islands line up:

Raymondson Azemard (Luis Turbyfield, 28), James Rene, Wildens Delva, Marc-donald Fenelus, Chris Gardiner, Paul Collis, Jerry Liluce, Jack McKnight (Kely Louima, 28), Stevens Derilien, Fred Dorvil, Marco Fenelus (Philip Shearer, 63).

Other Group Two results:

French Guiana 6-0 British Virgin Islands

Aruba 1-0 Turks & Caicos Islands

Turks & Caicos Islands 0-6 French Guiana

Aruba 7-0 British Virgin Islands

Current Standings:

1. French Guiana                  2              2              0              0              12-0       6

2. Aruba                                2              2              0              0              8-0         6

3. Turks & Caicos Islands    2              0              0              2              0-7         0

4. British Virgin Islands       2              0              0              2              0-13       0

Remaining Fixtures:

3^rd June                                British Virgin Islands v. Turks & Caicos Islands

3^rd June                                Aruba v. French Guiana