Trinidad and Tobago’s Club Sando will be chasing history when they face Jamaica's Mount Pleasant Football Academy in the second leg of their Concacaf Caribbean Cup semifinal at Sabina Park, Kingston, Jamaica, on Thursday night from 7 pm.
When both teams faced off in the first leg at the Hasely Crawford Stadium in Port-of-Spain eight days ago, the Angus Eve-coached Club Sando, making their debut in the tournament, battled to a 1-1 draw with Mount Pleasant Football Academy, coached by former Jamaica international Theodore Whitmore.
Winners of their five-team Group B round-robin stage series, Mount Pleasant took the lead in the 11th minute when striker Warner Brown but Daniel David drew Club Sando level in the 56th minute, after which both teams wasted chances to come away with the win, setting the stage for an interesting second-leg meeting tonight.
Speaking ahead of his team's second-leg encounter and a positive result from reaching a historic first-ever final on debut, Eve said his team was in a good place.
He said, "We feel really good about ourselves, being able to put ourselves in an opportunity to actually get to the finals." When we started the tournament, we just wanted to push ourselves to get as far as possible. And obviously, now we're in this position where we're in the semi-final, we feel that we want to give ourselves the proper chance to go all the way to the finals and maybe even win it all. But it takes one game at a time, so we're going to focus on this game and try to get over the line."
With regard to the game against Mount Pleasant itself, Eve said it was fortunate that his team has him as a coach from the standpoint of having been in these tournaments before; it's just a different incarnation of the name of the tournament.
He said, "I've played with the Defence Force, Jabloteh, and Joe Public in these tournaments and also coached at the national level, so it gives me a bit of a different calm because the energy usually comes from the coach, and if the coach is panicking, then your energy goes and flows into the players. "We believe that we could compete with them, and that first game showed the guys, and we will be leaving everything out on the park. We've been playing good football, and we want to continue to do that."
About the oponents, Eve said he was a bit surprised by their lack of fitness considering their league has started, as compared to his Club Sando players, who are still awaiting the start of the 2026/2027 season in T&T.
He said, "I thought that we ran them off the park, and looking back in the first leg, I think if you look at the end of the game, they were kind of hoping for the game to end. So, we believe that they're going to sit deep and are going to try to soak up pressure and play on the counter-attack with the quick guys that they have up front."
For the encounter, Club Sando will have to do without the services of Jabari Henry, who played at right back in the first leg and suffered a fractured toe in that contest.
However, the Club Sando squad has been boosted by the signing of Trinidad and Tobago left-back Andre Raymond, who was recently attached to Finnish top-flight club Ilves Tampere after transferring from Scottish side St. Johnstone in July 2025.
The winners of the Club Sando and Mount Pleasant Football Academy semifinal will face the winners of the other semifinal between Jamaica's Portmore United and Haiti's AC Violette.
Portmore United overcame an early setback to win the first-leg 3-1 at Sabina Park last week, while the second leg, which was carded for Tuesday last at Estadio Cibao in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic, was rescheduled to Wednesday, October 28, at Sabina Park.
The winners of the semifinals will contest the final, while the losers will play for the all-important third-place play-off, with the tournament champion, runner-up, and third-place finisher all qualifying for the 2027 Concacaf Champions Cup, with the champion receiving a bye to the round of 16.
