Caledonia leave for Haiti today

By Ian Prescott ian.prescott@trinidadexpress.com Story Created: May 5, 2011 at 11:41 PM ECT
WITH new signing Cornell Glen in the ranks, Trinidad and Tobago Pro League runners-up Caledonia AIA leave today for Haiti on a rescue mission to overturn a 1-0 deficit in their Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Club Champions Cup tie against Haitian champions Tempete FC.
The Haitians start favourites to win the two-leg tie, after stealing a 1-0 away win in Trinidad on April 22. The teams meet again on Sunday from 5 p.m. at Parc Levelt in Saint Marc, Haiti, for a place in the CFU semi-finals.
Already qualified are Alpha United (Guyana), who edged Puerto Rico's River Plate 3-2 over two legs, while Defence Force (T&T) outclassed Guyana's Milerock 7-0 on aggregate.
On Saturday, defending champions Puerto Rico Islanders will contest the opening leg of their quarter-final when they travel to Suriname to meet Walking Boys.
The four-team CFU final round will be played from May 25 and has been switched from Trinidad and Tobago to Guyana. The top three Caribbean finishers will qualify for the preliminary round of the CONCACAF Champions League.
Caledonia held their final training session yesterday and were confident of doing something positive in Haiti on Sunday.
"We will be going all out to try and equalise first, and then we will try and win the tie" said Caledonia AIA head coach Jamaal Shabazz. "It will be an uphill challenge for us to rise above because this match can shape the future of our players and the club.
"The situation we are in, where we are playing with our backs against the wall, is not new to us," added Shabazz. "They say that St Marc is in the best part of Haiti. The good thing is that the situation in Haiti is no different to what has been happening with us (Caledonia), so we should be very comfortable there."
Training with Caledonia yesterday was 30-year-old Glen, who represented Trinidad and Tobago at the 2006 World Cup and has played with five Major League Soccer (MLS) clubs in the United States, the last being San Jose Earthquakes
The former San Juan Jabloteh striker has returned home and signed a short contract with Caledonia.
"He is still rounding into form and is not yet the Cornell Glen we have known," said Shabazz. "He still cannot carry all the load, but he will take some of the burden off us in attack."
Captain Stephan David, a defensive midfielder who has played for T&T, believes that Caledonia can do the business.
"At first we were a little down from the defeat, but we saw that we could have come back from the defeat," he said. "So the approach now is to go across (to Haiti) and do what we can do by any means necessary to come back with the right result."
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