HexagonalBlog

Belize gets the all clear from FIFA

FIFA announced that Belize have been cleared to participate in the next round of the World Cup qualifiers that start next month after the Belizean government reached an agreement with the Football Federation of Belize (FFB) to hold new elections at the end of the year. 

Last month, the government refused to recognize the FFB as the governing body for football in the country and refused to provide security at the national team's home qualifier against Montserrat.  That match was moved to Honduras and the federation was provisionally suspended by FIFA.  Earlier this month, FIFA and CONCACAF officials traveled to Belize to broker an agreement between all parties.  With this agreement, the FFB will continue to perform its duties as the governing body of the sport in the country, with fresh elections for the executive board by the 10th of December.

So the government and the dissident groups within the Belizean football hierarchy will not see the immediate departure of FFB president Bertie Chimilio, but might be able to make that happen later this year.  (Several members of the FFB Executive Committee have already searched for the exits, such as 2nd Vice President David Jones over the weekend.) The four months should provide them with enough time to coalesce behind a common candidate and formulate a reform plan for football in the country.  If Chimilio is the impediment to the sport's progress as they claim, it's important that they do not fail.

2014 World Cup qualifying draw as it happens

Today is the day of the World Cup qualifying draw.  I am actually writing two articles at the same time, so here we go.

1422: The draw for the inter-confederation playoffs has been made.  Here it is:

• AFC vs. CONMEBOL
•  CONCACAF vs. OFC

So the fourth placed team in the CONCACAF Hexagonal will play the survivor of the Oceania qualifying series.

(CORRECTION: I originally wrote that CONCACAF would play AFC, but I was following the English language interpreter of the live broadcast and he got the matches wrong. I've corrected the text above.)

1424: I will focus on the confederation draw for the CONCACAF region.  They're doing Africa right now.

1438: Now drawing the third round of the African qualifiers.

1443: African zone complete, now moving on to the Asian draw.  Zico and Lucas to assist with the draw.

1455: CONCACAF draw is next, but they're going to make us wait with a musical interlude.

1500: And now it's time for the CONCACAF qualifying draw.  Bebeto and Lucas Piazon will assist with the draw.  Bebeto's a politician now, and he definitely looks the part.

I'll publish the tables after they're complete.

Second round (group stage):

Group A	Group B	Group C
El Salvador	Trinidad & Tobago	Panama
Suriname	Guyana	Dominica
Cayman Islands	Barbados	Nicaragua
Dominican Republic	Bermuda	Bahamas

Group D	Group E	Group F
Canada	Grenada	Haiti
St Kitts & Nevis	Guatemala	Antigua & Barbuda
Puerto Rico	St Vincent & Grenadines	Curaçao
St Lucia	Belize	US Virgin Islands

Third round (group stage):

Group A	Group B	Group C
USA	Mexico	Honduras
Jamaica	Costa Rica	Cuba
1st Group E	1st Group A	1st Group D
1st Group F	1st Group B	1st Group C

And that's it for the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying draw.

I would say that Jürgen Klinsmann will have a very gentle introduction to CONCACAF football with this draw.  It is possible that the USA won't have to visit Central America until the Hexagonal. Group B of the semifinal round will be the Group of Death, and Mexico could face three opponents who have beaten them in the last two qualifying cycles.  Group C looks interesting as well, but Group E of the second round is the one most likely to create a mild upset.

That's the end of my liveblog of the qualifying draw.  Thanks for following!

Take a bow, Belize

Before the start of the preliminary round of the World Cup qualifiers I wrote letters to the media officers of all ten of the national associations involved, inquiring about the national teams and their preparations for the two-leg series.  I thought that it would give the smaller federations a chance to publicize their activities and make them known to a wider audience.  Unfortunately, I received no replies from anyone, save one federation: Football Federation of Belize.  I can't say that I'm suprised by the lack of response, but I am surprised that Belize would be the lone respondent.  And not just one response, mind you, but multiple messages on training progress and who was in camp.

So take a bow, Belize.  Good result today, too.

Who will advance to the group stages of CONCACAF WC Qualifying?

The first legs of the preliminary round ties of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying are now complete, and we now have a much clearer idea of the relative strengths of the bottom ten CONCACAF national teams.  These matches have gone quite some way in demonstrating just how stratified the level of quality of the national teams is in this region; even among the bottom ten teams there have been some lopsided results.  Three ties are just about over, while two have all to play for.

FIFA kicks the Belize can down the road

FIFA's Emergency Committee has temporarily lifted the suspension of Belize's football federation until 15 August, which will allow the second leg of their preliminary round match against Montserrat to go forward.  FIFA suspended the FFB from international competition after the Belizean government ruled that the FFB was no longer authorized to represent the country in international competitions and then refused to offer security arrangements for the second leg match in Belize.  That match will now be played outside of the country in order to avoid any possibility of a further clash between the government and the federation.

Belize look like strong favorites to advance to the group stages of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying, but they are still in danger of being excluded from the competition.  It's clear that FIFA is giving both sides a chance to come to an agreement, andt it's also clear that FIFA will not permit the government to force out the FFB leadership.  FIFA stated that if the two parties are unable to reach an agreement by the middle of next month, Belize will once again be suspended from international competition. 

The big -- and forgotten -- losers of this mess are the Belizeans, who once again have to see their national team play a "home" qualifier in another country.

Nine days of World Cup qualifiers around the Caribbean

Time to get back into blogging after some time off to make my relocation...

This weekend the World Cup qualifiers restart in the CONCACAF region with two derbies in different parts of the Caribbean.  Two more series will start and finish within a three-day period next week.  It remains to be seen whether the second leg of the Montserrat-Belize series will be played, but if it's not by 10 July then Montserrat will achieve an unlikely classification to the group stages by default.

The first derby of the weekend will feature western Caribbean neighbors Bahamas and Turks & Caicos Islands in Providenciales.  As is typical with the minnow national teams, neither side has played a lot of games, but Bahamas have played more official matches thanks to Gold Cup qualifiers.  It's also difficult to find out more about the teams until -- in a lot of situations -- the day of the match.  In an interview with local media the Bahamian FA president says that his team is a collection of college-age and semi-pro players (he says that they are professional, which is really stretching the term as several players are with non-league football teams in England).  He goes on to say that Gavin Glinton, a MLS player who has appeared for TCI, will not be on the team for the qualifiers.  If that is true, then TCI's chances of causing an upset go way down. 

The other end of the Caribbean will see the two sets of Virgin Islands compete for a place in the second round group stage.  British Virgin Islands were very unlucky not to get past the first round against Bahamas in the previous cycle when they lost on "away" goals (both matches were played at the same stadium in the Bahamas).  The intervening years were not kind to BVI as they were hammered by Dominican Republic and Dominica in the 2010 Caribbean Cup.  That's still better than the performance of the US Virgin Islands, who are looking for their first win in over 13 years and their second win overall since becoming a FIFA member, which coincidentally was against the British Virgin Islands.  BVI do have one big claim to fame in that they were coached by one André Villas-Boas ten years ago.  So perhaps more than a few people at Chelsea will be paying attention to what happens in an obscure corner of the Caribbean. The USVI have completed their training camp in the eastern Caribbean and played a very young squad in matches in Puerto Rico and Anguilla.  Half of the squad was making their international debut, which could be an ominous thing in the tension of a World Cup qualifier. 

Next week I will focus on the Anguilla-Dominican Republic qualifier (I already previewed the Aruba-St. Lucia postponed qualifier).  This round is so hard to predict with any kind of precision, but I would have to say that Bahamas and the British Virgin Islands have the best chances to advance.

 

CONCACAF World Cup 2014 Qualifying: First Round

Below are collated results of the first round matches of CONCACAF World Cup 2014 qualifying.  Ties are two-leg series and standard FIFA rules apply (aggregate goals, away goals rule, extra time and penalties if tied on aggregate and away goals).  Home team of first leg is listed first, and its score is also listed first for both legs.

Montserrat 3-8 Belize (2:5, 1:3)
Anguilla 0-6 Dominican Republic (0:2, 0:4)
US Virgin Islands 4-1 British Virgin Islands (2:0, 2:1)
Aruba 6-6 St Lucia (4:2, 2:4 aet, 4:5 pen)
Turks and Caicos Islands 0-10 Bahamas (0:4, 0:6)

Montserrat and Belize kick off the 2014 qualifying cycle - really!

Later today the 2014 World Cup qualifying cycle will start with the preliminary round tie between Montserrat and Belize.  St Lucia and Aruba were supposed to get things started a couple of weeks ago, but those matches were pushed back for who knows what reason.  Montserrat-Belize could be postponed at the last minute, and there have been rumblings from Belize about a standoff between the national government and the federation that would produce just that, but Montserrat's team is in Trinidad & Tobago and they expect the match to go ahead today. Of course, there are conflicting reports as to where the match will be; the Trinidad Express says the match will be played at the Larry Gomes Stadium in Malabar, while the Guardian claims that the match will be at the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva.

Belize have scant pedigree in world football, but even so their record is much better than Montserrat's.  They only started participating in the World Cup qualifiers in the 1998 cycle, and they have won just once and drawn twice.  In the last cycle they defeated a stronger St. Kitts and Nevis side over two legs to advance to the second round of the qualifiers for the first time.  They did not play at home in the previous two cycles due to inadequate facilities in the country which forced the federation to schedule home matches outside the country, including -- incredibly! -- neighboring Guatemala with whom they have a border dispute.  This time around Belize will be playing at the newly renovated FFB Stadium in Belmopan, and Belizeans could see their national team play up to five times at home, which would be unprecedented.  The Belizean side is composed almost entirely of local players -- goalkeeper Shane Orio is the best known Belizean player, based in Marathón -- and is led by Honduran coach José de la Paz Herrera, who coached Honduras' 1982 World Cup side.

Everyone should know the story of Montserrat by now; the volcanic eruptions on their island in the mid-1990s meant that the national team has never played a home qualifier there.  With limited financial and human resources, a World Cup campaign will always be difficult, but when two-thirds of the island population is forced to evacuate it becomes almost impossible.  Kenny Dyer, the national team coach, spoke about the team being "a strong side", which stretches all credulity, but gave a more honest account of the situation in a later interview.  The squad has very little international experience, even by Caribbean standards, with no squad player exceeding five caps.  Dyer is available as a player (at age 46!) but he has just four caps, and the highest-profile player is Anthony Griffith who plays at English League Two side Port Vale.

I always say that experience is the deciding factor at this stage of the qualifiers, which points toward a Belize win.  Both sides will fight hard for the reward of more home matches in the World Cup qualifiers.

Kickoff to WC 2014 qualifying cycle delayed

I have seen reports on various forums that the St. Lucia - Aruba World Cup qualifier, originally scheduled for yesterday, has in fact been moved to a future date.  If you look at the CONCACAF World Cup qualification page on Wikipedia, you will see that the dates of the tie have been moved to July, but the official page of the Aruban federation still lists June dates for the two matches.  I'd like to get confirmation of the changes from a source other than Wikipedia, but after searching the Caribbean news agency and the St. Lucian and Aruban newspapers I have yet to find any mention of the World Cup qualifier.  Neither FIFA's website nor the international online betting sites have any record of the qualifier occurred, and if anyone would know about a World Cup qualifier occurring in an obscure part of the world, it would be a bunch of degenerate gamblers.

I've given up searching; I have other things to do today.  At this moment it looks like Montserrat and Belize will kick off the qualifying cycle, but in CONCACAF everything is subject to change.

 

St. Lucia and Aruba kick off the 2014 World Cup qualifying cycle

On Sunday, St Lucia and Aruba will start the World Cup qualifying cycle which begins with matches between Caribbean micro-states and concludes with inter-confederation playoffs in late 2013.  Whereas in previous cycles the first-round winners of the CONCACAF qualifiers would face another two-leg series followed by certain elimination, the winners of this round will be rewarded with more competitive matches and more home matches, and challenged with increased travel all over the region. 

As is the case with the smaller Caribbean teams, information on them is extremely difficult to come by.  In the case of Aruba, the national team has not played an official match this year, just two in 2010, and four in 2008.  They did not even bother to enter the qualification tournament for this year's Gold Cup.  During that time, the Arubans have scored just once and allowed 13.  Only Antigua & Barbuda and Netherlands Antilles failed to score at least three against them.  Maurice Escalona of SV Britannia is Aruba's all-time leading goalscorer -- with two goals.  The national team coach, Elvis "Epi" Albertus, was a coach at one of the island sides (SV La Fama) but I don't have more information on him.  The squad is comprised of local players drawn primarily from the two most successful Aruban clubs in recent times (SV Britannia and SV Estrella), but aside from goalkeeper Jeffrey Werleman, Aruba are extremely inexperienced in international play.  Aruba have an existing partnership with the Dutch FA in which the Europeans will provide UEFA 'C' license training to youth coaches.  Perhaps that partnership will pay off in the future, but its impact won't be evident on Sunday nor even in the next qualifying cycle.

St Lucia have sparse football infrastructure in absolute terms, but much more skilled and experienced players and better resources in relative terms.  St Lucia played four World Cup qualifying matches in the 2010 cycle, then two years passed before the next round of official matches in the Caribbean Cup. The federation also has ties with Europe, but in St Lucia's case the English have supplied the federation with technical assistance and personnel such as technical director Ces Podd and Carlisle United manager Greg Abbott, who will take charge of the national team through the qualifiers.  St Lucia's training program isn't all that sophisticated, but more advanced than most of the smallest Caribbean associations. 

At this stage of the qualifiers, the differences between the competing national teams reduce to matters of experience.  In that situation, St Lucia will always come out on top, and I expect them to advance to the second round next week.