Coombs has it wrong

President of the St Vincent and the Grenadines Football Federation has repeatedly claimed that St Vincent and the Grenadines’ advancement to the group stage of the CONCACAF Zone of the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers is this country’s best showing in the competition.{{more}}

Coombs’ latest pronouncement came at the opening of the National Lotteries Authority North East Football League, when he stated: “Never before in World Cup Qualifiers we ever reach so far… We reach in the Digicel Cup, but in World Cup advancement we never had that before.”

Despite varying formats employed over time, factually, St Vincent and the Grenadines, on four occasions, has reached one step from the final round of the CONCACAF set-up, the same as the current 2018 qualifiers.

Jogging back to this country’s first outing of the World Cup campaign in 1992, our opponents were Mexico, Costa Rica and El Salvador.

St Vincent and the Grenadines got to face the Central Americans after ousting St Lucia and Suriname and got the benefit of the withdrawal of Cuba.

Four years later, St Vincent and the Grenadines engaged Mexico, Jamaica and Honduras. This, after side-stepping Puerto Rico and St Kitts and Nevis.

In 2000, the Vincentians opposed El Salvador, Jamaica and Honduras in the semi-finals. Progress came after the Vincentian outfit ousted the US Virgin Islands, St Kitts and Nevis and Antigua and Barbuda, in rounds one, two and three respectively.

Similarly in 2004, St Vincent and the Grenadines pitted its skills against Mexico, St Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago, again at the group stage, after getting past Nicaragua.

The records show that in 2008, when St Vincent and the Grenadines faced off against Canada in the second round, we lost.

And in 2011, St Vincent and the Grenadines entered the fray in the second round and was placed in a group which was composed of Guatemala, Grenada, along with Belize. This phase ended the Vincentians’ run.

Participating in this the fourth round of the 2018 World Cup Qualifiers, St Vincent and the Grenadines has been placed in Group C alongside the USA, Guatemala and Trinidad and Tobago. St Vincent and the Grenadines had to first get past Guyana and Aruba.

The other groups are made up of Mexico, Honduras, Canada and El Salvador in Group A and stashed in Group B are Costa Rica, Jamaica, Haiti and Panama.

The winners and runners-up will advance to the six-team final round, often referred to as the “Hexagonal” stage.

From that phase, the top three teams get a direct passage to the 2018 finals in Russia, while the fourth place team will have a play-off with the fifth place from the Asian Football Confederation, for a possible fourth spot for CONCACAF.(RT)