WC 2014 First Round Update | The Regional Review

WC 2014 First Round Update

Posted on June 15, 2011 5:03 pm

Blink and you’ll miss it: while FIFA only has the Belize-Montserrat series registered on its Preliminaries site, and CONCACAF’s main page is fully focused on the Gold Cup, the latter did post the schedule for the first round of World Cup qualifying on its “World Cup” page only. UPDATE: FIFA has released the final schedule, with the exception of the postponed return match between Belize and Montserrat.

The other four first-round series will not begin until July, so I will save my regular preview (including the questions and “Match of the Round”) until after the Gold Cup. As for a preview of tonight’s World Cup 2014 opener between Belize and Montserrat: even without the players that are being held back at home, the 11 men representing the Football Federation of Belize out in Couva, Trinidad this evening should comfortably handle Montserrat, a side that simply served as cannon fodder in the last Caribbean Cup (getting hammered by St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Barbados in the first qualifying round). Whether or not they get to finish the series on Sunday, of course, is up to how the Belizean Sports Council and FIFA come to terms (if at all) over the horrid state of the FFB.

Finally, a quick word on semantics: Duane Rollins has elected to call the first group stage the “quarterfinal round“, which makes sense because his country is in it. Given that the five strongest national teams in the region (plus Cuba) will all have byes from the round, however, I wanted to go with a name that more accurately reflects the level of competition at this stage. And so, inspired by the US public educational system, here are the names that hereafter will be used in The Regional Review for the World Cup qualifying stages:

- First Round
- Elementary Round
- Semifinal Round
- Hexagonal

Tags: belize, concacaf, montserrat, world cup 2014 qualifying

4 Responses to WC 2014 First Round Update

usafan12 says:

June 15, 2011 at 6:15 pm

For those interested in following today’s game: as FIFA said, there will be no TV broadcast of the encounter (although that apparently has nothing to do with their reluctance with video technology), but you can follow the scoreline here.

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usafan12 says:

June 15, 2011 at 6:28 pm

Congratulations to Deon McCauley of Belize, the first player to score a goal in the 2014 World Cup!

I have a couple of errands to run, so this will be my last “live” update of the game, but you can keep up with the score at the above FIFA link.

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usafan12 says:

June 15, 2011 at 7:47 pm

Well then, McCauley just bagged two honors today, becoming the first player to score a hat-trick in the 2014 World Cup. A memorable occasion for him and his country; not so much for Montserrat’s keeper Micah Hilton, whose team is now 5-1 down.

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usafan12 says:

June 15, 2011 at 8:02 pm

So the first match of qualifying for Brazil 2014 ended in a convincing 2-5 away win for Belize. Although Gold Cup results have made a mockery of the selection of the March FIFA rankings for seeding purposes, at least CONCACAF can start to feel vindicated based on tonight’s match. The goal of the new format was to get more games for teams against opponents at their own level (and boost their rankings in the process), and it worked in Montserrat’s case – I can’t remember the last time they scored two goals in a competitive game.

I’ll have a preview of the return leg on Saturday, along with any available updates on the Belizean Sports Council/FIFA standoff.

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