October proved to be a difficult international break for Sutton’s overseas players, with only one able to contribute to a win.
Dillon De Silva started in Sri Lanka’s narrow 1-0 win over Turkmenistan in the first of a crucial double-header against the Emerald, with Leon Pereira continuing his fine form for the Golden Army by scoring the decisive goal at the Racecourse International Stadium in Colombo.
This sent Abudallah Al Mutairi’s side joint-top of Group D as Sri Lanka took a huge step towards qualification for the 2027 Asia Cup in Saudi Arabia, but they suffered one step back a few days later with the return fixture Arkadag Stadiony, in which De Silva once again started and marked his appearance with a goal.
Two quickfire goals from Elman Tagayev and Mekan Saparov gave Turkmenistan a comfortable advantage at the start of the second half, but the Sutton winger managed to set up a tense finale after Pereira’s initial effort took a wicked deflection that took it into the path of De Silva, who evaded the defender before squeezing the ball inside the near post from a tight angle to halve the deficit.
However, the hosts were able to see out a narrow victory of their own and condemn the Golden Army to third place heading into the next set of Asia Cup qualifiers, with De Silva set to face Thailand in November, before a gap sees them take on Chinese Taipei in March 2026.
Kane Crichlow fared little better over in North America, with Bermuda suffering two defeats in the Concacaf World Cup Qualifiers.
The midfielder played 76 minutes against Trinidad & Tobago as the Gombey Warriors fell to a disappointing 3-0 loss, having fallen two goals behind within the opening half-an-hour thanks to goals from Dante Sealy and Tyrese Spicer, before Kobi Henry made the win safe at the start of the second half.
Crichlow followed this up with 90 minutes in their second qualifier of the international break – an away game against Jamaica – with Bermuda looking to get revenge over the Reggae Boyz after a 4-0 defeat just last month.
However, Steve McClaren’s side were able to replicate that scoreline, with Dante Leverock and Bobby Decordova-Reid scoring twice in as many minutes, before Shamar Nicholson added a third before the half was out.
This put Jamacia in the driving seat at Independence Park, with Dujuan Richards sealing another comfortable win over Bermuda with a fourth goal with 14 minutes left.
As a result, Michael Findlay’s side remain rooted to the bottom of Group B after losing all four of their qualifiers so far, with defeat against Jamaica putting the Reggae Boyz on nine points, and thus means Bermuda are now unable to qualify for the World Cup with just to games remaining, with the Gombey Warriors set to face Curaçao (Thursday, 13th November) and Trinidad & Tobago (Wednesday, 19th November) next month.
Back in Europe, Jay Coombes and Mikey Charvetto Parody were dealt a tough couple of fixtures for Gibraltar Under-21’s, though the former only started one game and the latter didn’t feature at all.
Coombes started and played 76 minutes as Los Llanas lost 12-0 to Scotland, before being followed by an 11-0 defeat to Portugal five days later in which he was named on the bench alongside Charvetto Parody.
Gibraltar still have another game against Scotland (Wednesday, 15th October) as well as against Azerbaijan (Tuesday, 18th October) to play this international break, before returning to action in March 2026 with Euro Under-21’s qualifiers against Bulgaria and Czech Republic.
Team 54 currently sit bottom of Group D with no points from their opening four qualifiers.
