It’s an exciting time for soccer fans in North America. The Liga MX playoffs are on the horizon, and the MLS playoffs are in full swing, with only four teams remaining. And thus, it’s a bit frustrating to have to bear through this international break before these competitions can resume. Especially a break where the United States will be playing friendlies with an interim coach and thus making very little progress in developing an identity, and Mexico will be playing two friendlies against the same team (Argentina).
But fear not, because even if you aren’t interested in waking up at 7AM to watch Thailand play in the Southeast Asian Cup, there are still some very exciting and important games being played over the weekend. The Concacaf Nations League qualifiers will be held during the break, and although the quality of play may not be the highest, these matches are doubling as Gold Cup qualification and are a chance to see some teams that don’t play high stakes games very often. Without further ado I present to you the three most appealing Concacaf matches of the window:
St. Kitts and Nevis vs Canada (Sunday November 18th, 7PM Eastern)
Believe it or not, both of these teams are very good. Better than they’ve ever been before. St. Kitts beat Puerto Rico 1-0 in their first match before dismantling Saint Martin 10-0 on the road in their second. Canada have performed even better, disposing of the US Virgin Islands and Dominica 8-0 and 5-0 respectively.
Both teams are very much in the mix for Gold Cup qualification, as well as a place in the inaugural League A, which would be a stunning achievement for St. Kitts. The Sugar Boyz have home field advantage and a very talented team including Romaine Sawyers, who was player of the year for Brentford a season ago, and MLS veteran Atiba Harris. Several other players are based around the Caribbean or are currently competing in NCAA Division 1 in the US.
But the Canada team that they’re up against is in the infancy stages of a golden generation. Cyle Larin, Alphonso Davies, and Jonathan David are all very young talents either already in Europe or headed there soon. Junior Hoilett is a regular for Premier League side Cardiff. Jonathan Osorio has the been the rock of Toronto FC for several years. Milan Borjan was in the net for Red Star Belgrade when they upset Liverpool in the Champions League a week ago. 19 year old Ballou Tabla is playing for Barcelona B. Lucas Cavallini has scored six goals for Puebla this year in Liga MX.
That’s a long list of good players, and Canada will be looking to make some serious waves this cycle. This match against St. Kitts will be a great opportunity to catch many of the region’s exciting young stars in action.
Nicaragua vs Haiti (Saturday November 17th, 8PM Eastern)
Haiti and Nicaragua are both perennial on the fence Gold Cup teams, and with the expansion to 16 teams you’d expect both to start making it a lot more consistently. However, they’ve got a problem this time around, as one will be stepping on the other’s toes en route to the Gold Cup and potentially a berth in League A.
There’s history to this game, too. Nicaragua stunned Haiti in the Gold Cup playoff in 2017, knocking Les Grenadiers out after Juan Barrera scored 3 goals in the final ten minutes of the second leg to erase a 3-1 deficit.
Barrera is still terrorizing the region, with 4 goals already in Nations League qualifying. Haiti have a deeper team, but more importantly they’ve found a player to match Barrera since these two teams last met. Derrick Etienne, who is fresh off scoring the game winning, shield-clinching goal for the New York Red Bulls just a few weeks ago, is the guy that can score goals as well as create them for a Haiti team that traditionally doesn’t score that much.
Of course, despite that tradition, this Haiti team did defeat Sint Maarten 13-0 just two months ago, with Duckens Nazon dropping 5 goals, so keep an eye on him, too. He’ll be playing directly opposite Barrera on Saturday.
French Guiana vs Guyana (Tuesday November 20th, 5:30PM Eastern)
Maybe this game isn’t completed loaded with talent. But it is a rivalry game between two teams that are both very much in Gold Cup contention at the moment. Guyana have 4 points so far, while their French counterparts have 3. The winner would also lock up a position in League B, whereas the loser could still potentially drop down to League C. So there’s a lot to play for in this one.
Guyana’s most notable player is Emery Welshman, who currently plays for FC Cincinnati in the USL. He scored a hat-trick in the US Open Cup earlier this season, and another hat-trick earlier in this competition against Turks and Caicos. They also boast 20 year old goalkeeper Kai McKenzie-Lyle, who humorously scored a header on his debut with the national team last year.
French Guiana participated in the last Gold Cup, and brought in the big guns of Florent Malouda to assist them (though they were penalized for playing him as he was technically ineligible). Malouda and the other French based players are gone now, so the team will be forced to rely on local talent. Since French Guiana didn’t send a team to the Caribbean Club Championship a year ago, I can’t say I’ve seen much of this team, so all I can give you is a cliché “they’ll be hungry.”
If you’ve never watched a game this low in the grand scheme of things before, I really recommend it at least once. There is a unique charm to watching incredibly important matches played in front of very tiny crowds.
