I have to admit that I got a good chuckle when the article stated that Grenada is optimistic because they beat St. Maarten and U.S. Virgin Islands in the first round.
In general FIFA or CONCACAF is never going to write about a national team saying they have no chance at qualifying for a tournament. The articles are written with an optimistic point of view.
Point taken, though: that might well been the softest group in the history of CONCACAF men's NT competitions.
http://www.concacaf.com/article/concacaf-qa-julian-wade-dominica is titled "CONCACAF Q&A: Julian Wade (Dominica)."
Second round of Qualification started yesterday. Grenada - Puerto Rico 3-3 3-4 after penalties. Grenada had 3-0 lead. Martinique - Guadeloupe 1-0 Guyana - Curacao 2-5 played in Curacao French Guiana - Bermuda abbandoned due to storm St. Kitts and Nevis - Surinam 1-0 Second matchday of group stage is to be played on June 4.
Hey...I remember when the venue for 2010 Caribbean Cup qualifiers in Trinidad and Tobago had to be changed for a Nicki Minaj concert.
Second matchday on the way, some matches already over: Guyana - USVI 7-0. Amazing fact: they scored 17 goals in the competition with 13 different goalscorers. In four Caribbean Cup matches this year, Guyana have now scored 17 goals, with 13 different goal scorers— Caribbean Football (@caribbeanfooty) June 4, 2016 Surinam- SVG 2-1 surprise, I'd say
So, after two matchdays only Puerto Rico secured qualification to the final stage after last night's extra-time win against Antigua and Barbuda.
http://www.concacaf.com/article/grenada-targets-rebound-at-antigua-barbuda is titled "Grenada targets rebound at Antigua & Barbuda."
Group C is interesting. I also believe non of the teams in that group ever made it to Gold Cup. So it will be a new achievement for at least one of those teams.
I'd expect Jamaica, Antigua and Barbuda, and Trinidad and Tobago to win their groups. Group B has Haiti, who is still in World Cup Qualifying, and French Guiana, who was in the playoff against Honduras for the last Gold Cup. French Guiana isn't allowed in World Cup Qualifying, so we don't know how far they could have gotten. Guadeloupe is getting worse. Their first Gold Cup was in 2007, and they finished fourth behind only the three North American countries. They were sixth in Gold Cup 2009 and tenth in Gold Cup 2011. After not reaching the next round of Caribbean Cup Qualifying, Gold Cup 2017 will be the third consecutive Gold Cup they missed. In the round played this month, Guadeloupe was the worst second place team when four out of five of them advanced.
Not too sure about Antigua and Barbuda - IMO Curaçao have a shout at first place in that group. Mind you, the 2007 accomplishment came before the "former French NT players must wait 5 years to be eligible for DOM-TOM NTs" rule came into force.
Agree. Sucks that Kluivert is leaving but they have a good base of Dutch-based players. Also, I can see St Kitts pulling off the upset and finishing on top of Haiti.
I know it's not happening anytime soon, if ever, but it's interesting to wonder how good Guadeloupe, Martinique, and French Guiana could be if they were allowed FIFA membership. They are big enough and have the passion for soccer to be very competitive in the region. Most people don't know that every FIFA member receives $250K per year (expected to go up) with GOAL projects worth $500K every few years for soccer development. Not to mention how much revenue they might receive if they were allowed to compete in WC qualifiers. Instead they're basically competing with each other and other French colonies for help from the French Federation. Having them as full CONCACAF members but not allowed to become FIFA members seems like a big tease.
In WCQs for 2018, they were both eliminated in Round 3, with Antigua and Barbuda losing the aggregate 2:1 to Guatemala and Curacao losing the aggregate 2:0 to El Salvador, who is currently 8 spots behind Guatemala in the FIFA Rankings. They played in WCQs in 2011. Antigua and Barbuda won 5:2 at home and Curacao forfieted their home game. Antigua and Barbuda is 71 spots ahead in the FIFA Rankings and 22 spots ahead in the ELO Ratings. In the round that just finished, Antigua and Barbuda had a win and a loss. Curacao won both games and had a +10 goal differential, which was the best of the 15 teams in the round, but +7 of that was against the U.S. Virgin Islands, who are 194th in the FIFA Rankings. Antigua and Barbuda beat Grenada (150th) and lost to Puerto Rico (158th).
IIRC that is down to Curaçao having sent a u-something team to the 2012 Caribbean Cup to prep for a junior WC qualifying tournament.
http://www.eloratings.net/Curacao.htm says they didn't qualify for the 2012 Caribbean Cup. In October 2012, they lost all three games of their qualifying group against St. Lucia, Guyana, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Those games are in the oldest and least weighted of the four years in the current FIFA Rankings. After October 2012, they next played in November 2013. Curacao has 191.28 FIFA Ranking points, all of which are from the most recent three years. Antigua and Barbuda didn't get many points from the fourth most recent year, when they got 24.59 (that's with 20 percent weighting, the points when the games were new was five times that much). They got 387.92 points from the most recent three years (using the weighting FIFA uses for each year), which is over double the points Curacao has from that time. I'm not saying Antigua and Barbuda is as good as USA, but both of them lost 2:0 the last time they played a WCQ at Guatemala.
Jamaica was supposed to host Suriname tomorrow, but that game was postponed due to a hurricane. Since both of them are eliminated from World Cup Qualifying, the game could be played in November instead, or it could be played on a day that isn't a FIFA matchday.