By Ian Prescott
Copyright trinidadexpress
Trinidad and Tobago’s top two football clubs resume the quest for a spot in the 2025-2026 CONCACAF Champions Cup when they re-start regional qualifying action, from today.
Central FC, the 2025 Trinidad and Tobago Premier Football League runners-up, host Moca FC of the Dominican Republic in Group A of the 2025 CONCACAF Caribbean Cup at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, tonight from 8 o’clock.
Meanwhile, national champions Defence Force FC travel to Kingston, Jamaica, where they will face defending champions Cavalier FC in Group B action tomorrow at the National Stadium there.
Central FC will be seeking their first home points of the campaign after starting with two matches on the road, earning a single point so far.
Their last outing ended in a 2-2 draw away to SV Robinhood of Suriname on August 26, following an unlucky opening 2-0 loss to O&M of the Dominican Republic in which they dominated possession but were twice punished on the counter-attack.
Against Robinhood, Isaiah Lee scored his first Caribbean Cup goal for Central, while Joevin Jones netted his second career strike in the competition and his first for Central, having previously scored for Police FC against Arnett Gardens in 2024.
“Tomorrow’s game will be very crucial to the points that we got out of Trinidad and Tobago,” noted Central FC coach Julius Edwards at a news conference yesterday.
“We know that seven points more or less will give us a vital key to get into the next round; so you know, these two home games are very crucial,” Edwards stressed.
Besides the need to make home advantage count, Edwards said there would be extra motivation for those of his players who missed out on T&T’s first two CONCACAF World Cup Final Round matches.
“For the players that were left out of the team, it is an opportunity for them to showcase that they deserve to be there,” Edwards said.
Moca FC, by contrast, enter tonight’s contest on a difficult run.
The Dominican side lost 2-0 at home to Mount Pleasant of Jamaica in their most recent fixture, extending their winless streak in the Caribbean Cup to five matches with one draw and four defeats—the longest such run by a Dominican club in the competition.
That result also left Moca without a victory in their last three home outings, during which they have recorded one draw and two losses.
Tonight marks the first-ever meeting between Central FC and Moca FC in the Caribbean Cup.
Army in Jamaica
Tomorrow, Defence Force continue their campaign with a high-stakes clash against Cavalier in Kingston. The sides last met in 2023, playing out a 1-1 draw in which Reon Moore scored for Defence Force while Shaniel Thomas equalised for Cavalier.
Defence Force began their 2025 campaign with a 1-0 win over Juventus Des Cayes of Haiti, thanks to a goal from veteran playmaker Kevin Molino.
Cavalier, meanwhile, are enduring a three-match winless streak in the competition, their longest since the 2023 final. Their most recent result was a 1-1 draw with Juventus Des Cayes, courtesy of Shamar Watson’s strike.
Defence Force’s last win in Jamaica came more than a decade ago in the 2014 CFU Club Championship, when they defeated Harbour View 2-0 in Kingston.
On that occasion, current head coach Devorn Jorsling was the hero, scoring both goals to secure the victory.
