Coach An­gus Eve and his Club San­do FC squad will be con­fi­dent of se­cur­ing a spot in this year’s Con­ca­caf Caribbean Cup semi­fi­nals when they host the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic’s Delfines Del Este FC in Group A at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um, Mu­cu­rapo, Port-of-Spain Tues­day (Sep­tem­ber 8) from 7 pm.

​Tour­na­ment debu­tants, Club San­do will en­ter the match with a max­i­mum of six points from their two match­es to date, a 2-1 win over Suri­name cham­pi­ons SV Bro­ki back on Au­gust 6, backed up by a 2-0 blank­ing of T&T Pre­mier Foot­ball League Tier I cham­pi­ons, T&T De­fence Force a week ago, both at to­day’s venue for a share of the lead with Haiti’s Vi­o­lette AC who trounced De­fence Force 3-0 and then edged Delfines 1-0.

Delfines and SV Bro­ki have a point each at the bot­tom of the five-team ta­ble fol­low­ing their goal­less draw last Wednes­day.

​Speak­ing on the eve of his team’s third match at home from as many out­ings in the tour­na­ment, Eve, a for­mer na­tion­al se­nior and youth team coach, first ac­knowl­edged his team was in a re­al­ly good po­si­tion to qual­i­fy from the group.

The 54-year-old Eve said, “We got our­selves in a re­al­ly good po­si­tion by the foot­ball we have played over the past two match­es. So, we def­i­nite­ly want to give our­selves the best chance to try to win the match on Tues­day night.”

“We are in good stead, and just one play­er has a bad flu while one play­er has a lit­tle in­jury, so the ma­jor­i­ty of the squad is in­tact for the game.

“The mind­set of the team is that we want to con­tin­ue in the vein that we have been play­ing. We’ve been play­ing re­al­ly, re­al­ly good foot­ball at both ends of the field.”

In prepa­ra­tion for tonight’s match, Eve said he and his team have worked on im­prov­ing as­pects of their game which they felt need­ed im­prove­ment.

“I think of­fen­sive­ly, you know, we work on fin­ish­ing a lot be­cause we thought that in both match­es so far, we had a lot of good op­por­tu­ni­ties to fin­ish off the games and we didn’t do so, and I blame it down to match fit­ness, which is nor­mal be­cause we have not been play­ing in a league for months.

“So, but oth­er than that, we are re­al­ly in a good mood and feel­ing very good about our chances in the match to­mor­row (to­day), if we do put our best foot for­ward.”

Asked what threat he sees the Delfines team pos­ing to his team, Eve said, “We did see them in the Caribbean Foot­ball Union Club Shield, and we saw them play the sec­ond game against SV Bro­ki, so in all we have seen them three times this sea­son.”

He added, “We have the videos on them, just as they would have videos on us, and we analyse their strengths and what we be­lieve to be their weak­ness­es that we can ex­ploit.

“But we’re go­ing to con­tin­ue to play our game and try to get the de­sired re­sult that we want.”

A win for Club San­do will all but se­cure a top two fin­ish and a place in the semi­fi­nals ahead of next week’s fi­nal group match with Vi­o­lette AC, and elim­i­nate Delfines in the process.

While Club San­do’s last match was their win over De­fence Force with the do­mes­tic sea­son yet to be­gin in T&T, the vis­i­tors will en­ter tonight’s match on the back of a 1-0 loss to O&M FC on Sun­day in the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic Foot­ball League, which is in the fourth round of match­es.

On Wednes­day, Group A will con­tin­ue with SV Bro­ki host­ing Vi­o­lette AC at the Dr Ir. Franklin Essed Sta­di­um in Para­mari­bo, Suri­name, from 7 pm, while in Group B, ti­tle­hold­ers Mount Pleas­ant Foot­ball Acad­e­my and fel­low Ja­maicans Port­more Unit­ed meet.

Then on Thurs­day, Group B lead­ers Sal­cedo FC and Cibao FC meet.

At the end of the round-robin group stages, the top two teams in each pool will ad­vance to the semi­fi­nals.

In ad­di­tion to the re­gion­al crown, the Caribbean Cup of­fers a path­way to the 2027 edi­tion of the re­gion’s pre­mier men’s club com­pe­ti­tion, the Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons Cup.

The tour­na­ment cham­pi­on, run­ner-up, and third-place fin­ish­er (a to­tal of three clubs) will qual­i­fy for the 2027 Con­ca­caf Cham­pi­ons Cup, with the cham­pi­on re­ceiv­ing a bye to the round-of-16.

Cur­rent stand­ings

Group A

Team*P*W*D*L*F*A*Pts

Vi­o­lette AC*2*2*0*0*4*0*6

Club San­do*2*2*0*0*4*1*6

De­fence Force*3*1*0*2*2*6*3

Delfines Del Este*2*0*1*1*0*1*1

SV Bro­ki*3*0*1*2*2*4*1

Group B

Sal­cedo*3*1*2*0*3*2*5

Cibao*2*1*1*0*2*1*4

Port­more Utd*2*1*0*1*3*2*3

Cav­a­lier*3*0*2*1*0*2*2

Mount Pleas­ant*2*0*1*1*2*3*1