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MARABELLA, Trinidad - W Connection will return to the CONCACAF Champions League for the first time in three years, joining fellow Trinidadian club Caledonia AIA as both won their semifinal matches Tuesday in the Caribbean club championship.
W Connection, which eliminated the New York Red Bulls in the 2009 Preliminary Round before finishing third in its group, defeated the two-time defending champion Puerto Rico Islanders 4-1 after Caledonia AIA beat Antigua Barracuda FC 2-0 in the first semifinal.
The results leave only one berth undecided for the 24-team field in the Champions League, which will be determined Thursday when Barracuda FC and the Islanders face off in the third-place match. Puerto Rico is seeking a fifth straight trip to the Champions League.
W Connection and W Connection will face off later Thursday in the final of the CFU Club Champions Cup to not only crown the Caribbean champion, but also complete the pairings for the Group Stage.
The winner will join Group 4 with the Seattle Sounders and Marathon of Honduras, while the runner-up will be placed in Group 8 with Xelaju of Guatemala and Mexico's Chivas de Guadalajara.
The third-place finisher will go into Group 5 with the LA Galaxy and Isidro Metapan of El Salvador.
In the first semifinal, Radanfah Abu Bakr put Caledonia ahead in the 65th and Devorn Jorsling added the insurance in the 86th.
The match was Caledonia's first in more than a month, since a 2-1 victory over Barracuda FC in the second round of the CFU club championship. The loss was a fifth straight for Antigua and third in five days.
In the second match, Rennie Britto scored a goal in each half to lead W Connection past Puerto Rico.
Britto's cousin, Jerrel Britto, added a goal of his own in the second half to increase the lead to 2-0 and Andrei Pacheco completed the scoring. Second-half substitute Joshua Hansen tallied a consolation goal in the 76th, six minutes after entering the game, for the Islanders.
