| World’s worst in action in CONCACAF qualifying |
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| Tuesday, 25 March 2008 | |
 RIO DE JANEIRO (Reuters) - Three of the worst international teams will attempt unlikely wins in CONCACAF World Cup qualifying on Wednesday. Montserrat meet Surinam in a one-off preliminary round encounter that will be played in Trinidad & Tobago as neither country has a stadium considered suitable by governing body FIFA. U.S. Virgin Islands visit Grenada in another one-off tie while Aruba try to overturn a 3-0 first leg deficit when they travel to Antigua & Barbuda for their return match. Montserrat, U.S. Virgin Islands and Aruba are joint 202nd and last in the FIFA rankings, sharing the dubious honor with American Samoa, Guam and East Timor. CONCACAF’s lowest ranked teams are involved in the preliminary round while the higher-ranked sides such as U.S., Mexico and Honduras have a bye to the second round in June. The U.S. will play Barbados or Dominica who meet in Bridgetown on Wednesday after drawing their first match 1-1. St Kitts & Nevis need to overturn a 3-1 deficit at home to Belize to earn the right to meet Mexico. VOLCANIC ERUPTION Running Montserrat’s team has become a complicated exercise since the 1995 volcanic eruption which forced more than half the island’s people to move abroad. The eruption buried the capital Plymouth and reduced the population from 12,000 to 4,700. “Most of our players are over in England as refugees,” assistant coach Cecil Lake told FIFA’s Web site (www.fifa.com). “We still have a few players left here on the island but most had to leave. “We maintain a database though so we know pretty much where everyone is.” The English contingent include two semi-professionals, Junior Mendes of Conference side (fifth division) Aldershot Town and midfielder Wayne Dyer of Northern Premier League (seventh division) Hednesford Town. Dyer scored Montserrat’s maiden World Cup goal in a 3-1 defeat by Dominican Republic in 2000. Opponents Surinam also export plenty of talent, mainly to Netherlands where they have more than 100 professionals. A win would earn Surinam a two-leg tie against neighbors Guyana. Aruba, coached by Argentine Marcelo Munoz, have not won a game for eight years and with a team based entirely on players from the local amateur league are not expected to trouble Antigua in St John’s. Cuba await the winners. Grenada are likely to dispatch U.S. Virgin Islands in another one-off tie to clinch a meeting with Costa Rica. Anguilla will attempt to keep the score respectable in Washington against El Salvador, the only one of the teams in action on Wednesday who have played at a World Cup, after losing the first leg 12-0. (Reporting by Brian Homewood; Editing by Tony Jimenez) |
