Samuel helps T&T club to victory

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Senior Football team Captain Shandell Samuel scored his penalty to help Mau Pau lift the Toyota Classic and TT$50,000 last Friday evening, at the Marvin Lee Stadium in Macoya, in one of the Knock-Out competition of the Trinidad and Tobago Pro league.{{more}}

Samuel was one of three scorers for Mau Pau, who defeated Direct TV North East Stars in the penalty shoot up. Direct TV North East Stars has another Vincentian in its lineup, veteran midfielder Kendall Velox Samuel, who was entrusted with the fourth and decisive kick from the spot, which he scored.

Mau Pau won 3-0 on penalties, which came after a 1-1 score in regulation time. Mau Pau’s Clayton Ince kept a clean sheet in the penalty shoot out. Ince saved Anthony Wolfe’s opening kick; Gary Glasgow’s strike then hit the crossbar and Sean Fraser chipped over the bar.

Reports claim that in the first half of the game, Velox had Ince stretching full length on two occasions, both from long-range efforts.

Samuel, who formerly represented System 3 in this country’s local competitions, recently returned to the Trinidad and Tobago club, following an injury lay off, which took place during last year’s Digicel Caribbean Cup. An alleged administrative kink between the Executive of the St. Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation and his Trinidad and Tobago Club also hampered an earlier return.

Samuel, also played a pivotal role in the semi-final versus his former club, San Juan Jabloteh. In a penalty shoot out, he kept his end of the bargain, when he scored his spot kick in a 5-4 win, following a 2-2 regulation time score line.

Against Caledonia, Samuel failed to score his penalty in a 5-4 win, after the regulation time had finished in a stalemate, 0-0.

Last Friday’s victory gave Mau Pau its first title in the Trinidad and Tobago Pro League and it was the first occasion that both North Stars and Mau Pau were reaching the finals of the Toyota Classic, which began in 2005.

A relatively new entity in the Trinidad and Tobago Pro league, Mau Pau began operations in 2007. (RT)