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The Soft, Tattooed Millionaires will travel to a new venue in order to take on Trinidad & Tobago in the final qualifying match for the 2018 World Cup according to ESPNFC. Typically the Soca Warriors host their opponents in Port of Spain at the Hasely Crawford Stadium, but in October they will play the U.S. at Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva. The new venue holds 10,000 spectators rather than the 27,000 that their usual stadium does.
Trinidad & Tobago have the slimmest of hopes to qualify for the World Cup. They need to beat Mexico, in Mexico, and then take care of business against the U.S. Men’s National Team at home. In addition, they would need the U.S. to lose against Panama and for Honduras to lose both of their matches at home against Mexico and away to Costa Rica in order to hope to qualify. Even if all that happens, T&T also needs to overcome several tie-breakers, the first of which is a goal differential that currently stands at -11.
As far as why Trinidad & Tobago is switching things up, an official from their federation noted that the smaller venue was less expensive to operate and offered a better fan atmosphere with spectators sitting closer to the field.
The match will be the most important for the U.S. in the land of Jack Warner since 1989. This time, however, the national team will be hoping to travel to Trinidad & Tobago not needing to rely on last minute heroics the way it did when Paul Caligiuri scored a game winning goal that sent the U.S. to the 1990 World Cup.