Tough draw for Jamaica
Published:Wednesday | May 18, 2011 | 10:42 AM
Jamaica’s young Reggae Boyz will face a very tough task to qualify out of the preliminary round of the upcoming FIFA Under-17 World Cup in Mexico after being drawn into a group headlined by Argentina and France.
The three countries will play out of Group ‘B’ with Japan for the June 18 to July 10 tournament.
The official draw for the 24 nations took place yesterday in Mexico City.
Hosts Mexico will play out of Group ‘A’ along with North Korea, Congo and the Netherlands.
The other four groups are:
Group ‘C’ which consists of Uruguay, Canada, England and Rwanda.
Group ‘D’ - United States, Czech Republic, Uzbekistan and New Zealand.
Group ‘E’ - Burkina Faso, Panama, Germany and Ecuador.
Group ‘F’ Australia, Ivory Coast, Brazil and Denmark.
The top two teams in each of the six groups, plus the four-best third-place teams will advance to the second round.
Switzerland won the 2009 competition held in Nigeria, but the Swiss failed to qualify this time around.
Jamaica qualified for the World Cup by defeating Honduras 2-1 in the final quarterfinal game of the CONCACAF Under-17 Qualifiers, which were staged in the country recently.