Cayman to tackle Belize on road to Russia

(CNS): The Cayman Islands national football team has been paired with Belize in the first round of the regional qualifiers for the FIFA 2018 World Cup in Russia. The first match will be an away game for Cayman followed by a home leg. This is a very tough draw for the Cayman Islands which is seeded 33rd in the region while Belize is ranked 23rd. 

Cayman has not played on the international stage for some four years and is currently at the bottom of the world rankings and the team is likely to struggle to gain any points in the match-up.

But if the national squad does comes out on top the team will go on to play Dominica in the second round or its world cup hopes for 2018 will be over pretty quickly.

The draw for the preliminary competition to kick off the regional qualifiers took place in Miami last week. Round one will be played in two legs on dates from March 23-31 of this year, featuring a seven home-and-away series, among the CONCACAF Member Associations ranked 22-35 in the region.

The draw involved 27 of the 35 CONCACAF Member Associations seeking to qualify for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, and determined the match-ups for the first two rounds of the five-round regional qualifying tournament in CONCACAF.

The Round One series will be disputed as follows:

Match 1: Bahamas v. Bermuda

Match 2: British Virgin Islands v. Dominica

Match 3: Barbados v. U.S. Virgin Islands

Match 4: Turks and Caicos Islands v. St. Kitts and Nevis

Match 5: Nicaragua v. Anguilla

Match 6: Belize v. Cayman Islands

Match 7: Curacao v. Montserrat

For more information on the CONCACAF early legs for the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018, and to see the preliminary draw through video and interviews with participating nation representatives and the World Cup veterans on hand, please visit CONCACAF.com.