The United States crept one step closer to the 1986 World Cup finals tonight with a 2-1 victory over Trinidad and Tobago in a qualifying match before a crowd of 15,823 at Busch Stadium.

Trinidad football team is capable of winning the CONCACAF zone preliminaries of the World Cup Football tournament in Haiti next month and go on to capture the final in Munich next year, it was predicted today by Eduard Karim, Indonesian-born soccer coach now domiciled in Holland.

Canada's national soccer team, now preparing for the Confederation of the North, Central American and Caribbean zone football associations World Cup playoff in Honduras at the end of the month, beat Trinidad and Tobago 4-2 on Wednesday.

Trinidad soccer officials today braced themselves for showdown with players of the National squad now preparing for the World Cup preliminaries against Haiti in November.

Jamaica backed by a well supported crowd beat Trinidad and Tobago 2-0 in their home leg Caribbean Football Union's (CFU) Nations Cup Soccer match at the National Stadium yesterday evening.

CLAIMS OF breach of contract and accusations that officialdom is not doing anything to football in Trinidad were hurled at each other by Trinidad Football Association President Dom Basil Matthews and Hungarian-born coach Americo Brunner in statements here today as Brunner left his job as Trinidad National Coach.

The Trinidad and Tobago Football Association has announced the names of 18 players from whom the final team will be chosen for Saturday's World Cup playoff with Surinam in neutral Cayenne, French Guyana.

ARTHUR MAYNARD, Trinidad opening batsman, who made big news on his debut in first class cricket in 1935 against the MCC at Queen's Park Oval, then disappeared from the cricket scene immediately afterwards, died suddenly at his home in Belmont, Port of Spain, yesterday.