Some sources say St. Lucia will host Aruba on Sunday 5 June to start qualifying for World Cup 2014. For starters, FIFA says the following countries are not attempting to qualify and are therefore tied for 205th through 208th: 205. Bhutan 205. Guam 205. Brunei Darussalam 205. Mauritania
Brunei Darussalam are coming off a 2-year-long FIFA suspension for "government interference", so that explains why they didn't (or couldn't, rather) enter qualification. As for Bhutan, Guam and Mauritania, monetary and competitive concerns are probably why they did not bother signing up this time around. So, the field is cut from 208 to 204. Also, Brazil cannot finish any lower than 32nd, as they have already qualified as the hosts of the final. Here are the first dates of matches for each confederation: CONCACAF: June 5, 2011 AFC: June 29, 2011 OFC: August 27, 2011 CAF: November 11, 2011 UEFA: TBA 2012 (once EURO 2012 is over) CONMEBOL: TBA
If they use the same schedule as last time my guess is CONMEBOL will start qualifying in September 2011.
FWIW, concacaf.com has the St. Lucia vs. Aruba series as June 4 and June 8, so the first "active" nation to be eliminated will come Wed. I don't know if there's an official date set for the opening night of Brazil 2014, but by the usual soccer calendar it's probably Friday, June 13, 2014 so St. Lucia or Aruba will be out three years and five days before the World Cup Finals. According to concacaf.com, the rest of this preliminary round is... Montserrat vs. Belize - June 14 and 18 Turks and Caicos vs. Bahamas - July 1 and 8 US Virgin Islands vs. British Virgin Islands - July 2 and 9 Anguilla vs. Dominican Rep. - July 7 and 9
Unfortunately, it looks like St. Lucia vs. Aruba has been postponed to the first half of July, so qualifying gets underway with Montserrat vs. Belize (in Trinidad & Tobago) on June 15.
Will be an interesting thread based on the previous version which had over 400 replies.I'm surely it will eclipse that easily Hopefully in 3 years my national team will be one of the final 32 and I will be sorting accom in Brazil for another epic world cup adventure
So: 204 will be Montserrat or Belize on 19 June; 203 through 196 will be AFC teams on 3 July; 195 will be Bahamas or Turks and Caicos on 9 July; 194 and 193 will be (Anguilla or Dominican Republic) and (U.S. Virgin Islands or British Virgin Islands) on 10 July; 192 will be Saint Lucia or Aruba on 12 July; and then 191 through 177 will be AFC teams on 28 July. Do I have that right? (Assuming no further withdrawals in the interim, of course.)
GO USVI!!!! My friends played college soccer and tried out for the national team and made it. The game will be played in Fredericksted on the island of St. Croix. in the only grass field we have. They keep talking about how they can beat the BVI's so that they can qualify for the group stage and hope a team like Canada or Trinidad comes to play which would really be a site to see. I of course am going to root for my home team, hoping they can make it to the next stage.
And the Road to 2014 Brazil has begun. June 15: Montserrat 2-5 Belize Both of Montserrat's "home" goals (the match was played at Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, Trinidad and Tobago) came from Jay Lee Hodgson in the 44th and 86th minutes. Belize's Deon McCaulay got himself a hat trick, with goals in the 24th, 75th and 83rd minutes. Teammates Harrison Roches and Elroy Kuylen scored once each for Belize, with their goals coming in the 49th and 54th minutes, respectively.
I will be rather surprised if Sao Tome makes their scheduled appearance in CAF qualifying. They haven't played since 2003 and have dropped out of the FIFA rankings. Papua New Guinea would be on withdrawal watch too, but they hired a real coach and are due to participate in the Pacific Games in August.
Can't wait to follow this again. Hopefully this time we can get some better info on the matches that end at the same time. Like maybe if somebody here is watching on tv or on a stream, post the exact moment in time the final whistle blows.
The problem is that there aren't going to be streams for some of these matches. Especially the CONCACAF ones. I'll be watching the US Virgin Islands vs. British Virgin Islands matchups. The next team eliminated will be the loser of T&C vs. Bahamas, on July 9th. Next will be the loser of BVI vs. USVI on July 10th (game is going to be played early in the day, no field with lights), next will be the loser of Dominican Rep. vs. Anguilla (DR field has lights and is very likely to be played in the evening). Then will come the loser of Aruba vs. St. Lucia. The Monserrat vs. Belize 2nd leg is postponed, will know more about it later.
Yeah, a lot of the smaller Caribbean nations don't have the communications infrastructure for international broadcasts. In most countries the TV partners from countries like Canada, USA, Mexico, etc., etc., could just send a crate in on a plane, roll it to the location and broadcast, but it isn't the situation in some countries. In the first qualifying round for WC2010 Qualification Canada played St. Vincent and the Grenadines and for the leg played Kingstown there was no TV. Canadian fans had to search online for a radio stream for the Vincentian radio station broadcasting the game. Philip's Bakery is probably the most famous business in St. Vincent and the Grenadines among Canadian footy fans due to their advertisements during the radio broadcast.
yeah, I would expect to be able to get game feeds of at least half the asian qualifiers. But outside of the games in the DR, none will have tv feeds. I mean only 3 dozen people attended the game between Belize and Monserrat. I would expect the following matchups to have feeds: Taipei-Malaysia, Bangladesh-Pakistan, Sri Lanka-Philippines, Vietnam-Macau. A few others may have them as well.
Not entirely surprising for a Montserrat v. Belize game played in Trinidad & Tobago. If the game had've at least been played in Antigua or St. Kitts it would've been close enough to Montserrat at least for some of the islanders to make the trip to support their side.
Montserrat's population, according to Wikipedia, is 5,879. 18 out of 5,879 is 0.31% of the country's population. To match that, the U.S. would have needed to draw 926,237 people to its Gold Cup game today. I'm thinking we didn't quite get that.
There are another 8,000 or so driven off the island by the volcano, but that doesn't change the math much - your point is well taken.
2/3 of the island of Montserrat is uninhabitable due to the volcano, the old capital is a ruin city with 3 feet of dried lava in it, pictures are eerie... I would expect about 50-100 people to watch the USVI-BVI game.
I have done some research into the Belize situation and blogged it, either on this site at https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=11628 or my own www.leohoenig.com (Its the same text both ways) The second leg of the Nepal - East Timor game is apparently taking place a day before the other Asian second legs. (Its being played in Nepal, not East Timor). I expect East Timor will be the next team knocked out of the World Cup
The situation in Belize is still not resolved. According to this article, they have until June 30 to fix it, in order for the 2nd leg with Montserrat to be played by July 10. Things are looking up for Montserrat.
Here are the results from today's first leg matches in Asia: Cambodia 4-2 Laos Nepal 2-1 Timor-Leste Mongolia 1-0 Myanmar Sri Lanka 1-1 Phillippines Afghanistan 0-2 Palestine (played in Tajikstan) Bangladesh 3-0 Pakistan Vietnam 6-0 Macau Malaysia 2-1 Chinese Taipei So Vietnam have pretty much booked a spot in the next round against Qatar. Bangladesh also appear to be in a good position to move on to face Lebanon. Next match from Asia will be on Timor-Leste vs. Nepal (in Nepal) on July 2.