CONCACAF has 34 other countries (35 total). I included only areas that can play in WCQs. I excluded areas like Guadeloupe. http://www.eloratings.net/USA.htm does not have any games listed against (the order is the order used to seed the countries in 2014 WCQs): 1. Antigua and Barbuda (that will change) 2. Guyana 3. Suriname 4. St. Kitts and Nevis 5. Dominica 6. Puerto Rico 7. St. Vincent and the Grenadines 8. Nicaragua 9. Belize 10. Dominican Republic 11. British Virgin Islands 12. St. Lucia 13. Turks and Caicos Islands 14. Bahamas 15. Aruba 16. U.S. Virgin Islands 17. Anguilla 18. Montserrat So we've played less than half of the rest of CONCACAF. In June we will make it half.
So...we basically haven't played the mostly garbage Caribbean teams. Can't say that I'm too sad about that!
We're going to play Belize for the first time which will mean we will have faced more than half the CONCACAF countries.
You would think that Nicaragua would have a better team given their size and population. However, they've always been one of the CONCACAF minnows on par with the likes of other baseball first teams such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. I think Panama was similar until the past 10 to 15 years or so.
Next time we play the Netherlands, bring along the Suriname for a double header and have the B squad play them.
If Dominican Republic ever get serious about soccer they will be one of the best teams in the region. They're basically the only team on that list that has any sort of real potential... well Suriname could be good too but they lose all their players to Netherlands
I don't find it very troubling. I mean, there's a reason we haven't played the Bahamas, or any of the other teams on this list. These teams are all on the same tier as Belize. Those teams almost never win enough sub-regional matches to qualify for the Gold Cup or World Cup Qualifiers, and they're not a big enough challenge to make playing them in friendlies a priority. It's nice to see these 6-1 wins every once in a while, but it just isn't compelling soccer and doesn't really prepare us for teams that are a real challenge.
Great thread idea. Some teams have made the Gold Cup before, but were not in our group. Saint Vincent & the Grenadines in 1996 comes to mind (former Crew and Galaxy player Ezra Hendrickson was on that team, I think). Of the non-FIFA members of CONCACAF (Martinique, Gaudeloupe, French Guiana, Sint Maarten, Saint-Martin) I know we have played Martinique at least once, in the 2003 Gold Cup group phase (2-0 win, both from McBride). And we played Guadeloupe in Group in 2011 (1-0 win, Altidore). Further, a couple of times, the non-FIFA member CONCACAF teams have been in Gold Cup, but we didn't play them because either they didn't advance (Martinique in 1993) or did advance but we didn't play them in the knockout rounds (Martinique in 2002, Guadeloupe in 2007 & 2009). If you really want to be thorough, the RSSF Archive has results (and squad lists, I believe) for all matches through 2001. I believe the USSF site has at least results from 2002 on as well. Anyway, per FIFA, here's the # of times we have played our 39 CONCACAF foes: 1. Mexico = 60 times 2. Canada =31 times 3. Costa Rica =27 times 4. Guatemala = 24 times T5. Jamaica =20 times T5. Honduras =20 times T5. Trinidad & Tobago =20 times 8. El Salvador =19 times 9. Haiti = 16 times 10. Panama = 12 times 11. Cuba =9 times 12. Bermuda = 8 times 13. Barbados = 4 times 14. Grenada = 3 times T15. Curacao (Netherlands Antilles) = 2 times T15. Antigua & Barbuda = 2 times 17. Belize = 1 time 18. Cayman Islands = 1 time ---------------------------- 19. Martinique (non-FIFA member) = at least 1 time 20. Guadeloupe (non-FIFA member) = at least 1 time Zeros: 1. Dominican Republic 2. Suriname 3. Guyana 4. Saint Vincent & the Grenadines 5. St. Kitts & Nevis 6. Puerto Rico 7. St. Lucia 8. Aruba 9. Nicaragua 10. Dominica 11. Montserrat 12. Bahamas 13. US Virgin Islands 14. British Virgin Islands 15. Anguilla 16. Turks and Caicos Islands ------------------- 17. French Guiana (none that I could find, but haven't looked at RSSF) 18. Saint-Martin 19. Sint-Maarten If/when Bonaire becomes a member, we'll be right at 50%. Hopefully, in WCQ in coming cycles, we'll get a chance to play Suriname, Guyana, and maybe some others. Guyana got the the 3rd round of WCQ this year, but weren't in our group. And if we get to 4 spots ever, I think we'll go to something similar to Asia, and go 2 groups of 4 (or five) in the final round in lieu of a Hex, which could mean more teams in the previous round (16 instead of just 12).
There are a number of seriously under-performing teams in CONCACAF. If you break the top of the region down into tiers: Tier 1 - US, Mexico Tier 2 - Costa Rica, Honduras Tier 3 - Guatemala, Jamaica, T&T, El Salvador, Panama Tier 4 - Canada, Haiti, Cuba, Grenada, Antigua and Barbuda Given their population, resources, sports culture, and soccer history Canada should be solidly in tier 2 and Cuba, Suriname, and Puerto Rico should all be in tier 3 (maybe even tier 2 for Suriname--several of the best players in the world over the past 20-30 years have been Surinamese, you can't tell me that if they wanted to they couldn't pull together a team of guys who aren't quite good enough to play for Holland but could consistently beat all but the top 4-6 teams in CONCACAF).
Well how did baseball become such a hit in Dominican Republic and Nicaragua whereas soccer is so BIG in Haiti and Trinidad & Tobago and Costa Rica and everywhere else in the Caribbean/Central America (well besides the countries that are fanatical about cricket)
The USA brought the game of baseball to Cuba in the mid-1860's and it was Cuban immigrants, fleeing their country's ten-year war, who spread the game throughout the Caribbean, the Dominican Republic included. http://dr1.com/articles/baseball.shtml I have seen stranger. In the Caribe side of Costa Rica they love cricket in certain pockets. The reason being is Jamiacans, Bahamans etc etc wre brought in to help work on the Panama Canal. After completion, some migrated northward settling on the Caribbean coasts, taking cricket with them.
After researching the West Indies team, I was disappointed to learn that the US has missed it's chance at qualifying for the Cricket World Cup for 2014 and will start competing in 2015 Division 3 along with Bermuda, whichever two teams get relegated from Division 2 and whichever two teams get promoted from Division 4*. (*Which includes Italy, so hey, we got that going for us, which is good...)
Dunno about Nicaragua, but soccer isn't the most popular sport anywhere in the Caribbean other than Haiti (and maybe the former Dutch possessions like Aruba and Curacao, not sure about them)--baseball is king in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, cricket in the English-speaking.
Nicaragua has been doing slightly better as of late at the youth levels. They qualified for the 2013 CONCACAF U20 championships, beating Honduras to do so. And they gave Costa Rica everything they could handle. [Once they got to the tournament they didn't do great]. A small blip on the radar..........or a sign of things to come? Probably the former.
I'd put Costa Rica in Tier 1 as well. They qualified for 2 of the last 3 World Cups. They have some solid players in MLS, Scandinavia, and a talented few in the PL including Bryan Ruiz. They may not perform so well in the Gold Cup. But I'd say they're definitely a top dog.
Nicaragua qualified for the Gold Cup in 2009, going winless in Mexico's group. I was impressed by Real Esteli's atmosphere for CCL matches.
and that they won't play matches in a third world place like Saprissa. Then again, we play in Columbus.