Incroyable Football

I was actually able to persuade myself to do a bit of research on the opposition Canada will be facing in its first match during CONCACAF World Cup Qualification. Canada is clearly the better side, no doubt about that. But it is still interesting to have an in depth look at the opposition Canada will take on at BMO Field. Here are some basic facts about the Caribbean island. To begin with, the place is pretty beautiful. I could see the Canadian boys enjoying their stay in a Resort before the away tie.

[B]St. Lucia "The Land, The People, The Light"
Capital: Castries
Languages: French Creole, English
Area: 616km[SIZE=1]2[/SIZE]
Population: 173, 765
Currency: Caribbean Doller (XCD)[/B]

So what you can take out of this is that is it really, really small. The population of the country is smaller than 19 Canadian municipalities. This includes Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa-Gatineau, Calgary, Edmonton, Quebec, Winnipeg, Hamilton, London, Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge, St. Catherines, Halifax, Oshawa, Victoria, Windsor, Saskatoon, Regina and Sherbrooke. Even Saint Johns Newfoundland almost has more people in its metropolitan area than St. Lucia has in its entire country. Not only does it have a small population but it is also small in size. This is shocking 44 Canadian cities and towns are larger than the little Caribbean island. Now back to the team itself, here are some quick facts about the St. Lucia National Team. One thing you will remark tonight is that they have some pretty colourful uniforms.

[B]St. Lucia National Football Team
Coach: Terrence Caroo (St. Lucia)
Stadium: Vieux Fort National Stadium
Highest Ranking: 108
Current Ranking: 187
First International: Jamaica 1-1 Draw (1989)
[/B]

So at highest they are close to Canada's worst ever FIFA ranking. Terrence Caroo has been their coach since 2006 and is from St. Lucia. I could glean no other details about his former experience etc. Their national stadium, Vieux Fort National Stadium is officially called George Odlum Stadium. Odlum is a famous St. Lucian politician. The Stadium has a capacity of 9,000 and is located in Vieux Fort, St Lucia. Now we can look even deeper into this and look at the team on the field. Here is the Roster that St. Lucia used against Aruba earlier in the World Cup Qualifiers.

[B]GK Iran Cassium (age 26) Mabouya Valley Rovers (St Lucia)
GK Justin Joseph (age 19) Square United (St Lucia)
DF Vernus Abbot (age 24) W Connection (Trinidad)
DF Kurt Frederick (age 20) W Connection (Trinidad)
DF Shervon Jack (age 24) South East Castries (St Lucia)
DF Fabian Joseph (age 26) Mabouya Valley Rovers (St Lucia)
DF Nathan Justin (age 30) Micoud (St Lucia)
DF Pernal Williams (age 19) W Connection (St Lucia)
DF Andreas Willie (age 26) Micoud (St Lucia)
MF Rickson Augustin (age 28) Anse La Raye Young Stars (St Lucia)
MF Hanif Dolor (age 29) Mabouya Valley Rovers (St Lucia)
MF Enderson George (age 29) Micoud (St Lucia)
MF Guy George (age 34) Micoud (St Lucia)
MF Hiram Hunte (age 26) White House Dennery (St Lucia)
FW Cornelius Butcher (age 31) Micoud (St Lucia)
FW Zaccheus Polius (age 25) Mabouya Valley Rovers (St Lucia)
FW Troy Prosper (age 25) Northern United (St Lucia)
FW Magnam Valcin (age 25) Central Castries (St Lucia) [/B]

Funnily enough the first thing I remarked about this team was that they had a lot of players with double first names. Nathan Justin, Fabian Joseph, Guy George etc. This is obviously a pointless observation but was none the less the first one I made. You can also remark that a lot of them, 83% to be exact, play domestically with only 3 players (16.6%) play overseas. All of them play in the nearby island of Trinidad and Tobago. All for the same club, W Connection. While many countries, including England, Germany, Italy and Spain have a lot of players on their roster who play domestic football and are very successful I would say this is a bit different. When you look at the rosters of the teams that Canada will be playing against in the first round of this qualification process the more that play domestically the better. Canada, meanwhile, only has two players (Terry Dunfield and Julian De Guzman) who play domestically. 10.5% compared to 16.6% who do not play domestically for St Lucia. Canadians are quite spread out across the globe when it comes to club football actually, featuring in sides in Norway, Turkey, Germany, United States, England, Netherlands, Romania and Scotland. Only two players of the St Lucia roster have wikipedia pages (another pointless fact) but you can't glean much of either. Kurt Fredrick in fact has a wikipedia page that literally says this:

[QUOTE]Kurt Frederick was born on 27 April 1991. He is an international soccer player from Saint Lucia, who plays as a left back for the St. Lucia national team[/QUOTE]

Nothing about his club situation, no stats, not even an age. Although you can quickly figure out it is 20 because of his birth-date. Also because it is posted above. The other player,Shervon Jack, has a little bit more information. Although not much more. He seems to be one of their better players, playing his club football with sides like Joe Public F.C (Trinidad) who you may remember from CONCACAF Champions League a few years ago. Finally, we look at what the St Lucia did to make it to this stage in the qualification process.

St Lucia met Aruba, as you already know in the First Round of the FIFA Qualification process for CONCACAF. They played a home and away series against the side with the results being the following:

[B]Aruba 4 - 2 St Lucia
Kevin Edward and Cliff Valcin would score for St. Lucia. The match attendance would be 300 people at the Trinidad Stadium in Oranjestad, Aruba. The Referee would be Nolan Foster of the Cayman Islands.

St Lucia 4-2 (a.e.t) Aruba
Jamal Joseph would score a hattrick for Saint Lucia while Kurt Fredrick, the man with the oh so descriptive Wikipedia page, would score the aggregate tying goal for his nation. The team would win 5-4 on penalties with Nathan Justin, Zaine Pierre, Kevin Edwards, Kurt Fredrick and Pernal Williams all potting penalties to qualify the club for the next round. [/B]

Now, to conclude everything I will make my prediction. So that you know I have a specific system designated to predict this score, so it is not completely out of the air. With some statistical looks at both sides this is my prediction for tonight's match

[SIZE=5]Canada 10-0 St. Lucia[/SIZE]

I do hope that this is not the result, but it is probably going to happen if you look at everything I just laid out before you above. I hope that most of all you have a good time at/watching the game and wish you good football for the rest of qualifying. Hoping to see a legion of Red at BMO Field tonight.