By: BoriQa | May 15th, 2009
The 2009 CFU top seed Puerto Rico Islanders defeated the 2008 Haitian Champions Tempête FC in overtime by a 2-0 score at the 2009 CFU Club Champions’ Cup semifinals at the Marvin Lee Stadium, in Macoya, Trinidad & Tobago.
The Islanders semifinal victory earns them a spot in the upcoming 2009-10 CONCACAF Champions League (CCL). The Islanders were semifinalists in the 2008-09 CCL edition.
The game finished scoreless after 90 minutes of regular time, and went into 2 x 15 min periods of overtime (30 minutes).
Tempête’s Shedelin Francoeur received a red card on the 90th minute, so the Haitian team had to play a man short for the entire overtime period.
It didn’t take long in overtime for the Islanders to get on the scoreboard. To the delight of the small local crowd, Trinidad native Kendall Jagdeosingh broke the score open on the 95′ on a pass from Scott Jones. Jagdeosingh came from the bench on the 63rd minute for Nicholas Addlery. Twenty minutes later, Villegas (who came in for Josh Hansen in the 81st) scored the game’s clincher in the 115′ on a pass from Fabrice Noël. Noël himself was a 90th minute substitution for fellow Haitian James Marcelin.
The Islanders will now face W. Connection in the CFU final on Sunday. W Connection defeated 2-1 their arch-rival San Juan Jabloteh in the 2nd semi-final, played right after the Islanders game at Marvin Lee Stadium.
The win gave W. Connection a taste of revenge on the reigning Trinbagonian champions San Juan Jabloteh, who defeated the Connection in last year’s T&T Pro. League final.
The top three teams in the CFU Club Champions Cup qualify to the CCL. The semifinal wins earns both the Islanders and W. Connection a spot in the 2009-10 CCL as they can finish no worse than 2nd place. For the 2nd year in a row the San Juan Jabloteh is relegated to play for their life in the CFU’s 3rd spot match.
Jabloteh will face Tempête FC for the last Caribbean CCL spot on Sunday at 4pm at Marvin Lee Stadium. Afterwards (at 6:30pm) the Puerto Rico Islanders will face W. Connection for this year’s CFU Champions Cup.
