St Kitts & Nevis beat Dominica 3-1 at home on Saturday to advance on aggregate 4-1 and face the USA in the 2nd round. CONCACAF's website says the first game will be in Basseterre, St. Kitts on Nov. 15 (same day as MLS semifinals), and the return leg on Nov. 19 at a location TBA. Here's the complete list of 2nd round matchups: El Salvador/Canada Haiti/Honduras Panama/Saint Lucia St. Kitts & Nevis/USA Grenada/Trinidad & Tobago Jamaica/Guatemala Costa Rica/Guyana The winners of the first 4 matchups listed will be in one group for the final tournament, and the other 3 winners will join Mexico in the other group.
First of all, did Mexico qualify for final round already? How did they get a bye? Second, great timing again by CONCACAF, err! Third, I expect nothing but a perfect record for these qualifying games and have goal difference of +20, ala the French team in euro qualifying.
Any ideas on where the home qualifier will be? Let me be the first to suggest that it be played in SoCal, either at the Home Depot Center of a smaller stadium nearby, so that most of the soccer world is there anyway. For the game on the 15th, Mooch is going to be able to call on only six MLS teams, plus colleges and any A-Leaguers or European teams. Obvously Dallas and either Columbus (likely) or DC (maybe) will miss the playoffs. From a U23 perspective, I hope the Revs advance to the semis as they don't have any U23 players so there's no conflict! But, realsitically, we're likely looking at the St. Nevis trip sans Landon, DaMarcus, Mapp, Clark, Magee, Beckerman and Borchers IF the seeds hold. BTW, Nov. 15 is the weekend of the major college conference finals and I can't imagine St. John's wanting to part with Chris Wingert for such an important game so I don't see him being called in either. UCLA will have likely clinched the Pac Ten (doesn't have a tourney) so Adolfo Gregorio could be available but most of the top college players will be predisposed or be forced to miss their conference final and I don't see Mooch doing that.
Just noticed Euro 2004 Playoff is Nov 15-19. I guess they scheduled it the same time. Question. The Jupilar League is scheduled for games during that week. So does that mean we won't see Onyewu and Yi in our back line?
I'd guess that we're about 7 goals ahead of St. Kitts and Nevis on a home and away basis in terms of _senior_ sides. That's fairly significantly beyond the point where we'd have any worries against them. In terms of senior sides, the only side we've recently played in the same vicinity of quality of St. Kitts and Nevis was Barbados (whom we beat 7-0 at home and 4-0 on the road), and my rankings have Barbados as being a touch better than St. Kitts and Nevis. So I don't think we'll have too much problem with St. Kitts and Nevis. Should handle them even if we're limited to 6 of the 10 MLS teams and College Kids. Hell, if all else fails, give Freddy a call. No worries here, though it would have been nice to have the full squad to get a few games in playing together. Dallas U-23s: Brad Davis, Eddie Johnson, Andy Rosenband, Phil Salyer, Jordan Stone, Jason Thompson, D.J. Countess. Columbus U-23s: Nelson Akwari, Edson Buddle, Kyle Martino, Michael Ritch. DC United U-23s: Devin Barclay, Brian Carroll, Alecko Eskandarian, Santino Quaranta, David Stokes, Doug Warren.
---------Countess------------ Stone--Stokes--Akwari---Salyer ------------Carroll------------ --Johnson-------------Davis -----------Martino----------- ----Buddle-------Esky------- Not world beaters, but I would imagine that team would be able to hold off St. Kitts.
I just had a thought. Is this at the same time as the UAE U20 tournament? If so, that would remove a few guys from the pool.
East Coast Game 11/19 No specific location, but Mooch said the home leg will be played somewhere on the East coast (don't have the link handy, but article is at topdrawersoccer.com). I hope its within a reasonable driving distance of Cincinnati. Anybody want to carpool?
St. Kitts Stadium http://www.worldstadiums.com/stadiu...ica/saint_kitts_nevis/basseterre_warner.shtml
Re: East Coast Game 11/19 Here's the link you spoke of. http://www.topdrawersoccer.com/NationalTeams/20031014110712/view If I had to guess, I'd say it will either be Charleston's Blackbaud Stadium or good ol' Lockhart Stadium in Ft. Lauderdale. Given that Lockhart, according to Jordan Stone's diary at 3rddegree.net, is in bad shape because of Florida Atlantic football and HS football, I would guess that eliminates them. The reality is that a U23 national team game against St. Kitts, Olympic qualifier or not, ain't going to draw a lot of fans and a stadium like Blackbaud is the perfect size.