Local News

Young Piton Boyz To Play U17 World Cup Qualifiers

28 October 2024
This content originally appeared on St. Lucia Times.
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The Saint Lucia national team will face Jamaica, El Salvador, and the Cayman Islands in the Concacaf Under-17 Men’s Qualifiers next year. The official draw was conducted by Concacaf on Friday.

Drawn in Group H, the Young Piton Boyz will play their games at the Estadio Nacional Doroteo Guamuch Flores in Guatemala City, the largest venue in Guatemala, between February 10 and 15, 2025.

According to the schedule on the Concacaf website, Saint Lucia will play Jamaica on February 10, before meeting El Salvador on February 12. On February 15, they close their campaign against the Cayman Islands.

Saint Lucia faces an uphill battle to make the age-group World Cup, as the lowest-ranked team in their group.

The latest Concacaf Under-17 men’s rankings have Jamaica rated as the eighth-best side out of 41 national teams in that age group, just ahead of El Salvador at ninth. The Cayman Islands are 26th and Saint Lucia 30th.

The region’s FIFA U17 World Cup qualifying competition will take place from February 7-16, 2025, across six venues and include the participation of 35 Concacaf Member Associations. 

The new Concacaf U17 Men’s Qualifiers consist of a single round, in which the participating Member Associations are split into eight groups. After round-robin play, where each team will play against each team in its group once, the eight group winners qualify for the 2025 FIFA U17 World Cup, which will be played in Qatar.   

The eight groups are as follows: 

Group A: Canada, Bermuda, Curacao, Anguilla, and Turks and Caicos Islands 

Group B: Costa Rica, Trinidad & Tobago, Guyana, British Virgin Islands, and Sint Maarten 

Group C: Mexico, Nicaragua, Barbados, Belize, and Dominica 

Group D: Honduras, Puerto Rico, Bonaire and Saint Martin 

Group E: Haiti, Guatemala, Antigua & Barbados, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines 

Group F: United States, Cuba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and US Virgin Islands 

Group G: Panama, Dominican Republic, Aruba, and Grenada 

Group H: Jamaica, El Salvador, Cayman Islands, and Saint Lucia 

PHOTO credit: CFU