Saturday, June 10, 2006

In what might amount to one of the shocks of the tournament Trinidad and Tobago drew with Sweden 0-0 in the second Group B match, Saturday, despite having a defender sent off.

Lars Largerback’s Swedish side failed to break a high-energy team marshalled with great confidence from midfield by the Trinidadian captain Dwight Yorke.

Some excellent defending from Carlos Edwards and the Caribbean back four managed to keep out its European rivals for a famous first ever point in the World Cup tournament for the small island country.

Trinidad and Tobago started the game with a reserve goalkeeper after first choice Kelvin Jack was injured after warming up. But Shaka Hislop produced a string of outstanding saves, which included one 11 minutes from time when he stuck out a hand to stop Marcus Allback placing the ball over him.

The sending off of Avery John, after getting booked for a second time for a lunge, this time on Christian Wilhelmsson on 46 minutes, did not stop the Soca Warriors. In reply Leo Benhakker changed to a more attacking 4-3-2 system and threw on an extra attacker.

The West Indies team led by Yorke was competitive and hard in the tackle but Swedish pressure meant the team was in its own half of the pitch most of the game. The team had few chances on goal because its attacking plays were few; but one shot from substitute Cornell Glen clipped the crossbar to the glee of supporters.

Sweden made many goalscoring chances but its strikers must feel unfortunate that none were converted.

Rami Shaaban in the Sweden goal did not have a save to make. A statistic that says much for the dominance of the Swedish yellow jerseys is that Sweden had eight corner kicks to Trinidad and Tobago’s one.