PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – Head coach Tom Saintfiet has held out hope of Trinidad and Tobago still winning the Caribbean Football Union qualifying series, despite their opening loss to Suriname on Wednesday.
The hosts went down 2-1 to the Surinamese at the Ato Boldon Stadium and now need to beat Haiti in their final game tomorrow, and hope Haiti beat Suriname on Friday, in order to have any chance of topping the standings.

“Nothing is over yet. We need to hope that Haiti win on Friday … against Suriname and then it’s up to us to beat Haiti in 90 minutes with a better score than we lost to Suriname, then we can still qualify,” the Belgian said.
“But it’s naturally very sour at the moment to imagine that it’s not in our own hands.”
T&T started the encounter positively but failed to capitalise on a few good shots on goal, as the game went to the half scoreless.

However, Suriname took the lead in the 76th minute through Guno Kwasie and even though T&T equalised five minutes later through a brilliant Tyrone Charles free kick, the visitors netted again in added extra time courtesy of a wonderful Ivanildo Rozenblad long range volley.
Saintfiet, in only his third game in charge of T&T, lamented the fact T&T had not made more of their first-half dominance.
“In the first 70 minutes, we didn’t make the opening goal. I think the public was very positive, there was a good atmosphere, everyone could feel we were hunting for that goal,” he pointed out.

“We had a lot of corners, a lot of almost-goals. If we had scored the opening goal I’m sure we would have won the match.”
Saintfiet said, having seen Suriname playing before in the Caribbean Cup last year, he always knew that T&T would have their hands full.
“Suriname didn’t surprise me. I saw them play against Guyana and they were 1-0 behind after five minutes and they came back also in extra time to win (3-2),” he explained.
“They have a lot of players who are skilful on the ball. For sure, number 10 (Roxey Fer) and 12 (Sorencio Juliaans); we had some difficulty with them.

“I’m surprised by the result because I expected to win but I’m not surprised about the quality of Suriname.
“I think Suriname is a good team with all local-based players except one who have showed in previous games they are very committed and (have a) very hard-fighting spirit, aggressive on the pitch … so I was not surprised by their quality. I was only disappointed in what we did and the result.”