Venezuela whips T&T 4-1 in FIFA Series opener

NIGEL SI­MON

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

nigel.si­[email protected]

T&T So­ca War­riors suf­fered a 4-1 loss against neigh­bours Venezuela in their FI­FA Se­ries open­er at Pakhtakor Sta­di­um in Tashkent, Uzbek­istan this morn­ing.

For the 50th world ranked Venezue­lans debu­tant strik­er Delvin Al­fon­zo and vet­er­an strik­er Solomon Ron­don both scored twice to can­cel out a go-ahead item for T&T by Viet­nam-based strik­er Re­on Moore in a clash of two na­tions who failed to qual­i­fy for the up­com­ing 2026 FI­FA World Cup in the USA/Cana­da/Mex­i­co from their re­spec­tive Con­ca­caf and South Amer­i­can qual­i­fiers.

The out­come for the 97th world ranked So­ca War­riors could have been much dif­fer­ent against the South Amer­i­cans had T&T cap­tain, Levi Gar­cia of Russ­ian club Spar­tak Moscow con­vert­ed from the penal­ty-spot in­side the first minute.

The 45-year-old T&T in­ter­im coach Derek King and his squad was pre­sent­ed with a dream start when Oman-based mid­field­er Du­ane Muck­ette was bun­dled over by goal­keep­er Cristo­pher Varela with­in 45 sec­onds of the start.

How­ev­er, from the re­sult­ing spot-kick, Varela re­deemed him­self when he dived to his left and par­ried a left foot­ed strike from Gar­cia on­to the post and back in­to play.

At the oth­er end of the field, the T&T de­fence man­aged to keep things tight with Venezuela on­ly have one re­al chance at goal, which was skied over the bar.

Sev­en min­utes in­to the sec­ond-half, Gar­cia re­deemed him­self by turn­ing provider for T&T's open­er when he elud­ed Jorge Yr­i­arte on the right side of the 18-yard box and whipped in a right-foot­ed cross which was par­ried away by Varela, but on­ly in­to the path of an un­marked Moore, 29, whose one-time left foot­ed vol­ley in­to the turf, beat three de­fend­ers on the line and in­to the net for the 1-0 lead and his 11th goal in 33 ap­pear­ances

T&T's lead last­ed on­ly eight min­utes though as a turn-over by Cana­da-based An­dre Ram­per­sad in mid­field led to Gleik­er Men­doza pick­ing out an un­marked debu­tant Delvin Al­fon­zo, who took two touch­es be­fore blast­ing past T&T goal­keep­er Den­zil Smith on his near post to lev­el the score at 1-1.

Sev­en min­utes lat­er, Al­fon­zo ben­e­fit­ted from some more slop­py de­fen­sive work by T&T when a left sided cen­tre from Jorge Yr­i­arte was al­lowed to run across the T&T six-yard line by de­fend­er Justin Gar­cia, where an on-rush­ing Al­fon­zo ham­mered home from close range for a 2-1 lead.

King then made a quar­tet of changes with the hope of get­ting back in­to the con­test with Moore, Dan­taye Gilbert, Muck­ette and Ryan Telfer mak­ing way for Roal Mitchell, Daniel David, Nathaniel James and Re­al Gill.

How­ev­er, it was the Venezue­lan sub­sti­tute and stal­wart Ron­don, who re­placed Ale­jan­dro Mar­ques in the 62nd minute who made an im­me­di­ate im­pact for his team, beat­ing the T&T off-side trap and run­ning on­to a ball over the top from fel­low sub­sti­tute Luis Gon­za­les to fire a right foot­ed ef­fort low past Smith for a 3-1 cush­ion in the 81st minute.

And four min­utes lat­er Ron­don, 36, com­plet­ed his dou­ble, when he latched on­to a clever ball from an­oth­er sec­ond-half in­tro­duc­tion Car­los Sosa, to tuck the ball un­der Smith, with his 50th goal in 122 ap­pear­ances to hand debu­tant coach Os­wal­do Viz­car­ron­do the win.

The So­ca War­riors, who were beat­en 3-0 in their lone friend­ly on March 15 away to Bo­livia pri­or to Fri­day's match will now turn their at­ten­tion to their meet­ing with Gabon on Mon­day, March 30 while Venezuela takes on Uzbek­istan.

In Fri­day's oth­er match, Uzbek­istan faces Gabon.

Yes­ter­day's FI­FA Se­ries re­sult:

Venezuela 4 (Delvin Al­fon­zo 60th, 67th, Solomon Ron­don 81st, 85th) vs T&T 1 (Re­on Moore 52nd)