Qatar dumps Defence Force from Military Games

T&T’s Defence Force was dumped from the football tournament at the Fifth CISM World Military Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil after going under to Qatar 1–0 in their third and final group match, yesterday. Going into the match against the unbeaten Qataris, the T&T Defence Force, the local national league champions needed a win to have any chance of advancing. However, in the 35th minute it was reduced to ten men when striker Richard “Shaka” Roy was shown a second yellow card and sent for an early shower by Kenyan referee Sylvester Kirwa after first being cautioned as early as the fifth minute.

Despite, being a man down, the T&T Defence Force managed to go into the interval at 0–0 with its opponents, but two minutes into the second-half, it fell behind when Mohamed Zenhom got what turned out to the match winner. Two minutes into time added on in the match, the T&T Defence Force saw another of its players take an early shower when Devin Jordan was issued a straight red card while Qatar’s Naif Mubarak Al-Buraiki also had a penalty attempt saved by T&T Defence Force goalkeeper, Kevin Graham.  

With the loss, T&T’s  Defence Force, which committed 33 fouls compared to 18 by Qatar in the rugged match ended with three points, after a first day 2–1 win over Cameroon and third spot in the group while Qatar ended with maximum nine points and a place in tomorrow’s (Thursday) semifinal round. Germany, which whipped T&T Defence Force 4–1 on Sunday, defeated Cameroon 3–1 in its final match. However, the Germans were pipped out for the best second place and a semifinal spot by Algeria (Group A) which had a superior goal difference of plus-11 to the Germans plus-four after both teams ended with six points in their respective groups.

In the other matches yesterday, Brazil topped Group A after it slammed Uruguay 8–0, while Algeria clobbered Suriname 7–0. In Group B, Egypt blanked France 2–0 while Ecuador edged Kenya 1–0. Today, T&T national basketball champions will be in action while in the boxing ring, top medal hopefuls, Andrew Fermin, Kwayne Michell and Auron Hassorto will all be in round-of-16 bouts. Fermin will come up against UAE’s Abdulazi-Khalifa Alyaqoobi in the men’s middleweight (70kg), Michell fights Algerian, Mohamed-Amine Ouadahi in the bantamweight (56kg) category and Hassorto comes up against UAE’s Ibrahim Al Hammadi in the welterweight (69kg) division.