Warriors rue missed chances

The result left the Warriors in fifth spot on seven points, one behind Guatemala who earned a point at home drawing 0-0 with the United States also on Wednesday.

Leo Beenhakkers team must now beat Panama away from home on October 8 and also pull off a win in Port-of-Spain against Mexico if they are to at least finish fourth and snatch a play-off spot. At the same time, they must also hope that Mexico overcome Guatemala at home in their next match.

Consecutive wins for TT will give them a total of 13 points, while Costa Rica (13 points) following their next outing against the USA, will travel to Guatemala for their final match looking for a win to confirm their third place in the standings.

This sets the stage for a gruelling affair there on October 12. Panama meantime are virtually out of it.

Before 18,000 fans, TT went for the win and could consider themselves a bit unfortunate with not coming away with at least a point as they dominated the closing stages of the first half where they could have grabbed the lead with Chris Birchall and Marvin Andrews getting chances.

TT had also gone into the game without defender Brent Sancho who pulled up with a hamstring injury following training on the eve of the game.

The visitors had a bit of home tonic as the support drummed up by CLICO and TSTT saw close to 130 TT fans in white with flags, all occupying one of the bottom stands near the corner spot. The Laventille Rhythm Section was heard throughout the tight venue despite the large amount of Costa Ricans on hand.

From the opposite end of the Stadium where President George Maxwell Richards was seated, the sounds of iron and horn was also heard and at one point it dominated as TT’s play silenced the home fans.

But in the end, the home-side did what mattered most, they got the goals and it left Beenhakker’s men in a desperate do or die situation. Alvaro Saborio got the opener from close range after TT failed to deal with an incoming ball from Ronald Gomez on 14 minutes. Then Costa Rica got a free kick even though the adjudged foul looked doubtful and Walter Centeno curled a bullet past Kelvin Jack in the 50th minute.

"Yea, obviously it means that we must go and win our next two match against Panama and Mexico. It is still in our hands and that is the most important thing for us right now," Beenhakker said.

"Once again we conceded an early goal but we didn’t give up and we created our chances but we did not put them away and when you do that and the other team puts their chance away, you pay the price for it. But all is not lost and we still have a good chance of going through."

The TT dressing room hosed a disappointed lot following the match but the contingent, including Russell Latapy was still upbeat over the chances in the next two matches.

"It was a good game of football. We wanted to come here and see if we could win the match because that was the only way we could qualify directly. But Costa Rica got an early goal and that made it quite difficult for us." Latapy said.