May 7th, 2002
Cayman Islands Automatically Qualify for the Gold Cup

By Kenisha Morgan
Cayman Islands Football Association

The Cayman Islands National Football Team has landed a position in the CONCACAF Gold Cup Qualifying Final Competition for November 2002, and not without much hard work.

Last year during the qualifying rounds in Martinique the Cayman Islands National Team gave a tremendous performance. They came out unscathed, losing none of their matches and has thus been awarded a position in the finals set a few months from now in Trinidad & Tobago.

National Technical Director, Marcio Maximo is very proud and happy that all the hard work he has put into the team is yet again manifesting itself. " For me it's a good thing, because CONCACF has started to recognize our work. We played against top teams in the Caribbean and did well. This is a good chance for exposure of our players and their development."

The tournament has nine automatic qualifiers including the Cayman Islands, and fourteen others that must vie for the remaining seven spots.

Other automatic qualifiers include Trinidad & Tobago, St. Kitts & Nevis, Jamaica, Barbados, Cuba, Antigua & Barbuda, Martinique, and Haiti.

The other fourteen teams will compete between July 1st and August 11th, 2002 in a preliminary competition leading up to the finals in November.

The Gold Cup, which will take place in the United States in 2003, is a bi-annual Confederation Championship hosted by CONCACAF since 1984. Gold Cup qualifiers hail from all over the region, North, Central America and the Caribbean.

The top two teams from the qualifying rounds this November will advance to compete for the Gold Cup next year.