THE Trinidad and Tobago football team managed to overcome theor initial setbacks to defeat the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 2-0 in a friendly international in Girona, Spain, yesterday.

The Asian tour had got off to a rocky start after T&T head coach Dennis Lawrence complained that the team had been unable to secure a facility for training. The Caribbean team, however, showed very little effects of that on the pitch.

After the early exchanges, Trinidad and Tobago opened the scoring through Ataullah Guerra, who eluded his defender after receiving a cross from Nathan Lewis and rolled the ball into the back of the net in the 37th minute.

Earlier, Ahmad Khalil had blasted an Omar Abdul Rahman chipped free-kick over the crossbar inside 10 minutes and Joevin Jones had struck straight at UAE keeper Khalid Eisa five minutes later.

Lewis, who proved to be a thorn in the side of the UAE for most of the encounter, sealed the win for the Caribbean team in the 58th minute.

The winger was himself the recipient of a Joevin Jones cross, which led to an easy tap in at the far post.  The win was T&T’s first against the Asian team having played to a 3-3 draw in the previous encounter.