Basseterre, St. Kitts, 20th August, 2014, – Once again St. Kitts and the Warner Park Stadium will be in the limelight as the local Football Association prepares to host six (6) matches in the 2014 Football Caribbean Cup, starting on Wednesday 3rd September.
Four of the Caribbean’s top teams will be featured when Guyana, Dominica, St. Lucia and host country St. Kitts and Nevis, compete for the top two positions in Zone Six in order to move on to the next stage of the tournament, organized by the Caribbean Football Union, CFU.
Several of the region’s top football stars will be on show including a number of overseas based players for the various teams.
Senior officials of the St. Kitts and Nevis Football Association have revealed that two matches will be played each night on Wednesday 3rd, Friday, 5th and Sunday 7th September, with the opening game at 5:30pm and the second match at 8:30pm.
Coach of the St. Kitts and Nevis senior team, Pedro Hazel, indicated during a recent press conference that the squad has been in training for the past eight weeks, starting right after the Premier League. The training squad he said began with 25 players which will eventually be cut down to a final team of 18.
While the competition is expected to be keenly contested, fans are already talking about what they say will be a major showdown between Guyana and the host country. Hundreds of Guyanese nationals now residing in St. Kitts and Nevis are expected to attend the matches hoping to support their “two home teams”. However, football officials remind that all the matches will be keenly fought because of the known abilities of the players from Dominica and St. Lucia, which have had good records in the sub-regional competitions of the past.
The full slate of events will see double header matches each night as follows:
Wednesday 3rd
5:30pm Guyana V Dominica
8:30 St. Kitts V St. Lucia
Friday 5th
5:30pm St. Lucia V Guyana
8:30pm St. Kitts and Nevis V Dominica
Sunday 7th
5:30pm Dominica V St. Lucia
8:30pm St. Kitts & Nevis V Guyana
This tournament acts as the Caribbean zonal qualifiers for the popular COCACAF Gold cup, which will see more than 30 teams doing battle for four spots at the tournament, which would be held in 2015 across the United States.
The 2014 Men’s Caribbean Cup will play its qualifying and final rounds on FIFA Official or Friendly Match dates in order to ensure that all nations field their strongest units.
Teams will feature in four groups of four for the first qualifying or round one which will be played across four islands of the region, while another fourteen have gained direct acceptance to round two, based on their current FIFA official rankings.
Group winners and runner-Up from each of the four groups in the first qualifying round; along with the Best Overall Third Place team will qualify for Round 2. This Round will be played between FIFA International Match Calendar dates of 01 – 09 September 2014 in Martinique (Zone 3), Puerto Rico (Zone 4), Antigua & Barbuda (Zone 5) and St. Kitts-Nevis (Zone 6).
It means therefore that St. Kitts and Nevis must emerge from this first round of matches at Warner Park, either in the number one or second position, if they are to move ahead to the next round.