St Vincent and the Grenadines who ranks 156 in the FIFA ranking as August 11th, 2016, will play the United States on Friday 2nd September at the ArnosVale Playing.
St. Vincent and the Grenadines made their world finals qualifiers debut in the USA 1994 preliminaries. Yet to reach the final six-team round, the Vincy Heat claimed Nicaragua’s scalp in the Germany 2006 qualification competition, went down to Canada in the second knockout round of the South Africa 2010 preliminaries and reached the first group phase on the road to Brazil 2014 before being eliminated.
The experienced quartet formed by defender Roy Richards, midfielders Darren Hamlet and Emerald George and striker Myron Samuel are the leaders of a side intent on reaching the group phase. The Vincy Heat are also looking to youngsters like front man Oalex Anderson to bed down at international level and take them forward in the future.
The number of times St Vincent and the Grenadines have progressed from the knockout rounds to the group phases, a feat they achieved in the preliminaries for USA 1994, France 1998, Korea/Japan 2002 and Germany 2006.
The home team may be set for advantage as the Americans will have to Play against the island nation on their own soil,more of a challenge than meets the eye.
In addition to facing determined opponents, there are issues of travel, weather, field conditions and other idiosyncrasies that combine to make getting results a real test.
In qualifying for both the 2002 and 2014 FIFA World Cups, games against Caribbean teams went down to the wire and nearly cost the United States a spot in the final round.
And of course, the game kicks off the sweltering Caribbean afternoon heat.
