Making an historic debut in the 2nd round of qualifying, the host, BVI made Guatemala struggle for supremacy, despite being twenty places higher in the Regions football rankings and were only undone ultimately by some small moments of quality that made the difference.

Having gone behind to a powerful rocket shot from outside the box by Oscar Castellanos in the 23′ minute, the BVI battled for every ball in a defensive masterclass from the whole team and then were still able to cause some real concern for Guatemala on the break

In fact, both Luka Chalwell and Jerry Wiltshire had chances to score the equaliser, the former seeing his shot blocked inside the six-yard box and the latter arrowing a header just over the bar from 15 yards out.

However, perhaps showing a higher level of fitness, understandable given Guatemala is mostly made up of professionals and the BVI players having to work for a living first and foremost, the visitors doubled their lead, taking advantage of a slight loss of concentration in the home teams defence which allowed Rubio Rubin to score in the 45’+4^th minute, with Jose Ardon assisting with a header near the left post to redirect a cross into the box by Jose Morales.

To rub salt into the wounds, Guatemala then made it 0 -3 with a soft penalty two minutes into the second half, from where there was no way back for the BVI.

“There is no disgrace in being beaten by three, they are a far superior team” commented Coach Chris Kiwomya “the players battled so hard against a good team and the disappointing thing for me was we could have stopped them scoring despite all the chances they had. We gave them some scary moments, sticking to the plan to hit them on the break. We can take a lot from the game, learn from it and continue to grow. The whole team did their job, the keeper saved shots, the defence did a lot of blocking, midfield covered a lot of ground, which is what you need when you play teams like this, everyone has to do their part and today everyone was outstanding.

do their job. Ultimately, we were undone by some moments of quality from them, but we are getting better and everyone at the ground would have seen that.”

“Today, we showed our character, fought for each other for the whole 90 minutes, made sure we stayed organised and I’m proud of the team.” Commented Captain Troy Caesar “We just have to keep moving forward and will get there at some time with even more positive results”

The British Virgin Islands will visit the Dominican Republic on Tuesday on the final matchday of Concacaf qualifying for the current window.