Trinidad and Tobago’s Soca Warriors crashed to a 4-0 defeat to Romania, yesterday, in their international friendly at the National Arena in Bucharest.
T&T are in Europe as part of their preparations for the 2013 Gold Cup.
T&T have been drawn alongside Honduras, El Salvador and Haiti in Group B of the Concacaf Gold Cup, and will play their opening game at the Red Bull Arena in New Jersey against El Salvador on July 8.
Romania were T&T’s first real test ahead of the Gold Cup, and they will have little time to lick their wounds as they come up against Estonia in another friendly in Tallinn on Friday.
In their first competitive game in Europe since the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, T&T fell behind in the 30th minute with Ciprian Marica scoring the first of his three goals.
Two minutes later, Marica was at it again, scoring his second item as T&T went into the break 2-0 down.
There was more bad news for the Caribbean side early in the second half when W Connection player Daneil Cyrus scored an own goal, putting the ball behind Central FC custodian Marvin Phillip four minutes after the restart.
Marica came back to finish off the job with a third item nine minutes from time.
Phillip was given the nod between the uprights, ahead of St Ann’s Rangers keeper Jan Michael Williams.
Williams, Port Vale’s Chris Birchall, North East Stars’ Cornell Glen, Shahdon Winchester, who plays with FF Jaro in Finland, Ataullah Guerra of Finland’s RoPS, and Caledonia AIA’s Jamal Gay were all on the T&T bench.