CONCACAF Champions Cup. Well, the tournament was called Copa de Campeones y Subcampeones CONCACAF and involved the champions and vice-champions of the participating countries, although not every one provided two teams. Not every country participated either – Canada was absent, for instance. The structure was clear only in the genaral outline, but not in details. As ever before, a good chunk of information is missing even today and there are wrong names and conflicting information, depending on the source. In general, it was a tournament of direct elimination after 2 legs – home and away – but some games were played on neutral ground: Vida (Honduras) and Deportivo FAS (El Salvador) played both legs in Los Angeles (USA). Where the Mexican leg of the fixture America (Mexico City) and Vida (Honduras) was played remains a mystery: Mexican sources give Queretaro; CONCACAF – Mexico City. Whether 5 teams from the Caribian Section – Mont Joly (Cayman Islands – possibly a confusion with the club from French Guyana, which pariticpated for sure), Violette (Haiti), Boys Town and Tivoli Gardens (both Jamaica) and Aiglons (Martinique) – played at all is unknown. CONCACAF countries were divided into 2 section – Northern/Central Section and Caribian Section. The winners of them met at the final for the cup. Most likely financial and travel reasons led to such division, but the football benefits of it were more than doubtful: the Caribian teams, where the South American members of CONCACAF also played, were much weaker. The whole structure is suspect, in fact: there is no doubt that the Mexican clubs were the strongest in the whole region, but they met between themselves in the first round and automatically were reduced by half. USA was represented by single club – Chicago Croatian – which was champion of what? NASL was gone by now and USA had no recognizable national championship, professional or amateur. The number of teams after the first round were uneven, so there were direct buys in 1/4 and 1/2 finals – thus Aurora (Guatamala) went straight from the first round to the final of Northern/Central Section. It is entirely unknown whether one of semifinals of the Caribian Section was played at all – no results exists and it is only assumed that Defence Force (Trinidad and Tobago) beat USL Montjoly (French Guayana). In such circumstances it could assumed that the Mexican clubs had lukewarm interest in the tournament at best, very likely prefering to concentrate on the thoroughly professional domestic championship. Which affected their performance negatively. This and possible ambition of Central American teams to beat the mighty neighbours – direct elimination gave them certain chance, especially if they added various hostile out of field schemes to intimidate their opponents – could be the explanation why Mexican clubs were not constant winners.
Northern/Central Section. Mexico, USA, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Bermuda played in it. If the record is real, then Canada, Costa Rica, Nicaragua and may be some islands did not participate. In terms of relative strenght, only the absence of Costa Rica may have been important. The Mexican saga was particularly unremarkable: for some reason America and CD Guadalajara met in the first round and America qualified. America reached the 1/2 finals and lost to Olimpia (Honduras) 2-2 and 0-1. It appears they lost their home leg, which is strange, but America underestimated their opponents and lacked real interest, they deserved to lose. Meantime Aurora (Guatemala) played only in the preliminary round, where they eliminated Hotels International (Bermuda) 0-0 and 3-0. After that they qualified by byeis to the final. In the final Aurora won its home leg 1-0, then lost away 0-2 and Olimpia (Honduras) qualified to the CONCACAF final.
Caribian Section. As already mentioned, 5 teams from Cayman Islands, Haiti, Jamaica, and Martinique were listed as paricipants, but it is entirely unknown whether they played any games. 11 teams really played, according to existing records – Robinhood (Surinam) qualified by a bye from the first round. 3 teams were eliminated at this stage: RC Conaives (Haiti – there was nothing clear in CONCACAF: Conaives have 2 clubs and this RC most likely reffers to Racing Club and not Roulado, but who really knows?), San Francois National (Trinidad and Tobago), and Jong Holland (Dutch Antilles). In the second round 4 more teams appeared along with the winners in the first round. Here only only match was played between CS Moulien (Guadelupe) and Weymouth Wales (Barbados) – CS Moulien won its home leg 1-0 and no match in Barbados was played. The name of the opponent of Defence Force (Trinidad and Tobago) remains practically unknown: it is listed as Tri JSC, but the only club in Guadelupe with similar name is JS Capesterre. And that was all records suplly… it is not even certian that only 8 teams played at the second round. As for the rest, there are resluts for only fixture in the third round: USL Montjoly (French Guayana) eliminated Jong Holland (Dutch Antilles) 3-0 and 1-0. Assuming this round was semi-final round, apparently eliminated CS Moulien (Guadelupe) and then won over USL Montjoly – nothing else explains why Defence Force appeared at the CONCACAF final. And to conclude the big fun CONCACAF was, the last recorded games before the final were August 1985. The final, though, was played in January 1986. Defence Force (Trinidad and Tobago) vs Olimpia (Honduras). On January 19th Andres Kenneth scored twice and provided Defence Force with good cushion for the second leg in Honduras. On January 26th Juan Carlos Escpinoza scored one goal and Olimpia won the second leg, but Defence Force won the cup on 2-1 aggragate.
Unlikely winner at first glance – but this was lunatic tournament, so why not?
And here theyr are – happy winners of CONCACAF Champions Cup. Standing from left: Anthony Delpesh (capt.), Hutson ‘Baba’ Charles, Libert Duncan, Michael Puckerin, Anthony “Goat” Furlonge, Troy Garcia, Errol Lovell, Anthony “Shiggy” Garcia, Miguel Hackette
Front Row: Grantly Maxwell, Dexter Francis, Hayden Thomas, Curtis Murrel, Chris “Pointy” Miguel, Rodrick Gibbs.
To the world at large the names mean absolutely nothing, but it is another matter at home – very likely they are well remembered in Trinidad and Tobago. Heroes and rightly so. More than just heroes: this was the second time Defence Force won CONCACAF Champions Cup – they did already in 1978. This is the only club from this country to win the trophy. As a whole, CONCACAF is quite weak, but there are degrees even among the weak: Trinidad and Tobago never ranked high in CONCACAF, so the achievement of Defence Force is truly remarkable. As for the strenght of the team… one can presume: the club was founded in 1974 as military club. That means the club had power to recruit the best in the country, to provide relatively good and professional training conditions and very likely providing otherwise amateur players with some perks, even some way of paying them – as soldiers or officers of the army. Such scenario explains success: realtively decent and well prepared professional or semi-professional team, spurred to give its best by military orders. Facing an opponent, which was no great power itself, victory was possible. And the boys won – that is all that counts after all.