Vincy Heat to face Guyana Jaguars in WC qualifiers

St Vincent and the Grenadines’ Vincy Heat will face Guyana Jaguars in the second round of the CONCACAF zone of the World Cup Qualification for Russia 2018.{{more}}

This became known last Thursday when the draw took place in Miami, USA.

The Vincentians will meet their counterparts from the South American continent here in the first leg June 8, with the reverse fixture set for June 16.

It will be the first occasion that both sides would be meeting in World Cup qualification.

Their previous meetings have been in the Caribbean Cup and in friendly internationals.

Records of the last five encounters against each other show both teams winning two and one drawn match.

During their last World Cup sojourn in 2011, St Vincent and the Grenadines exited the second round, when they were grouped with Guatemala, Grenada and Belize.

On the other hand, Guyana had their best showing, reaching to the third phase of the qualifiers.

Vincy Heat, like the other second round teams, sit out the first round, as they were ranked between 9th and 21st at the FIFA table in August 2014.

Some of the second round teams will, however have to wait on the outcome of the first round match-ups, which feature pairings of the 23-31 (August 2014) ranked teams.

Round one features Barbados versus the US Virgin Islands, Belize against the Cayman Islands, the British Virgin Islands take on Dominica; with Curacao meeting Montserrat. The remaining fixtures are the Turks and Caicos Islands versus St Kitts and Nevis and Nicaragua opposes Anguilla.

Canada, like St Vincent and the Grenadines, enter the fray in the second round and meet either the British Virgin Islands or Dominica, with Cuba facing Curacao or Montserrat; Guatemala play The Bahamas or Bermuda, Puerto Rico meet Grenada and El Salvador play the winner of the Turks and Caicos Islands/St Kitts and Nevis tie.

Antigua and Barbuda will engage St Lucia, the Dominican Republic face either Belize or the Cayman Islands and Aruba meet the winner of the Barbados versus the US Virgin Islands match up, to complete the second round activity.

Jamaica and Haiti enter the proceedings, joining the 10 winners of the second round ties.

Round three comes off on August 31 and September 8.

The six winners of the round three ties will be joined by the United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Trinidad and Tobago in round four. Those 12 teams will be put into three round-robin groups of four teams and play home-and-away series with the rest of the group.

Match days are set for November 7 and 17, 2015, March 21 and 29, 2016, and August 29 and September 6, 2016.

The process goes on with the top six teams from round four entered in the hexagonal phase. The top three finishers book tickets straight to Russia, while the fourth place affords an intercontinental play-off, with the view of booking another place for CONCACAF.

Grouping and paring for rounds three, four and the semi-finals would be made public in Petersburg, Russia, July 25, this year.(RT)