FIFA Rankings July 2014: Turks & Caicos Climb

Following on from their victory over the British Virgin Islands in the Caribbean Cup last month the Turks & Caicos Islands have climbed well clear off the bottom of the FIFA world rankings with a frankly astonishing 66 point haul courtesy of that lone victory.

That sees them climb 26 places in the ranking tale to 181^st and ends a stay at the bottom of the rankings that had lasted since October 2012.  Additionally, they are now ranked 29 out of the 35 CONCACAF nations thanks to their recent relative success.

Caribbean Cup: British Virgin Islands 0-2 Turks & Caicos Islands

Tuesday 3^rd June 2014

Caribbean Cup Qualifier Preliminary Round Group Two

Trinidad Stadium, Oranjestad, Aruba

Gavin Glinton came back in to replace Stevens Derilien and Kely Louima and Syed Hassan replaced Paul Collis and Marc-donald Fenelus.  Crucially, Raymondon Azemard was fit enough to start in goal.

Looking for their first win in an international fixture in over six years, since a World Cup win over St Lucia in February 2008, the Turks & Caicos players set about their task with purpose.

Caribbean Cup: Turks & Caicos Islands 0-6 French Guiana

Sunday 1^st June 2014

Caribbean Cup Qualifier Preliminary Round Group Two

Trinidad Stadium, Oranjestad, Aruba

Making just one change to the starting line up from an impressive opening showing against Aruba, Turks & Caicos were looking to continue their form against French Guiana.  Striker Stevens Derilien replaced the injured Gavin Glinton as he had done during the first half of the opening match.

French Guiana are not FIFA affiliated, being a part of France rather than in independent nation, and so the result from this match would have no bearing on Turks & Caicos Islands FIFA ranking.  Put in that context, if you’re going to get humped 6-0 you may as well do it against a team that won’t affect your ranking.  Had Turks & Caicos avoided defeat here it would have been frustrating to have still been rooted to the foot of the world rankings.

Caribbean Cup: Aruba 1-0 Turks & Caicos Islands

Friday 30^th May 2014

Caribbean Cup Qualifier Preliminary Round Group Two

Trinidad Stadium, Oranjestad, Aruba

 Despite the huge gulf in world rankings between the two sides, the Turks & Caicos Islands put up an impressive showing in their opening group match in Oranjestad.  Playing against the host nation Aruba, our intrepid islanders gave as good as they got in a closely fought contest.

The only goal came after 28 minutes when Emile Linkers broke free through the middle and scored with a tidy finish lobbed over the onrushing Turks & Caicos keeper Raymondson Azimard.

2014 Caribbean Cup Qualifiers

More usually it has been the little volcanic rock of Montserrat that has been the focus of Worst in the World attention in the Caribbean, but of course they have risen from the depths and left us for a few years at least.  But our focus on the annual Caribbean Cup competition remains thanks to the Turks & Caicos Islands.

The Caribbean Cup itself will take place later in the year in Montego Bay, Jamaica; in November to be precise.  Eight teams will make it that far out of the 26 who entered this year.  Bahamas, Bermuda, Cayman Islands, Saint Martin and Sint Maarten did not enter, but thankfully Turks & Caicos did so we have some preliminary round action to look forward to.