MARABELLA, Trinidad (CMC):

Andre Pacheco netted an early goal and fired W Connection to a 1-0 win over San Juan Jabloteh in the all-Trinidad and Tobago Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Champions Cup final at the Mannie Ramjohn Stadium on Sunday evening.

Pacheco scored in the 11th minute to place W Connection into the CONCACAF Champions Cup quarter-final play-offs next month, while giving them their third CFU club title.

Jabloteh went into the match minus top defender and captain Cyd Gray who was red-carded in the 2-0 win over Baltimore Sportif of Haiti at the same venue on Friday night, and from early on W Connection tested their youthful back-line.

Andre Toussaint, who scored a goal and made the other two in his team's 3-2 semi-final win over Jamaica's Harbour View in Friday's semi-finals, had the first shot on goal in the sixth minute. But his right footer from 24-yards out just missed dipping under the cross-bar with goalkeeper Brian James, in goal for an injured Daurance Williams, off his line.

Soon after, W Connection scored what turned out to be the only goal of the match even though Jabloteh may have felt undone by the goal, as it came from a swiftly taken free-kick by St. Lucian Earl Jean, with Jabloteh defender Nigel Daniel rolling in pain on the ground from a collision right in front of referee Javier Juaregui, from the Netherlands Antilles.

W Connection withstood a few nervous moments in the defence late in the game just as they did in the win over Harbour View to add to their CFU Club triumphs of 2001 and 2002.

The Stuart Charles-Fevrier coached W Connection will now meet CD Guadalajara of Mexico in the quarterfinal round of the CONCACAF Champions' Cup, in a home-and-away series on February 13 and 28.