United States Virgin Islands National Soccer Team
The U.S. Virgin Islands national soccer team, nicknamed The dashing eagle, is the national team of the U.S. Virgin Islands and is controlled by the U.S. Virgin Islands Soccer Federation.
Though FIFA did not officially recognize the USVI team as affiliated until 1992, the Virgin Islands federation was founded in the 1970s by Trinidad native Robert T. Wills who helped build the base of the USVI Soccer Federation as it is known today. The team played its first official international match on 21 March 1998 in a victory against the British Virgin Islands. In May of 2011, the USVI soccer federation chief, Frederick Hillaren, began ambitious changes in the team and appointed Keith Griffith, former coach and captain of the Barbados national football team and former coach of Trinidad and Tobago powerhouse club team Joe Public F.C., as technical director. Within two months of Griffith's appointment, the team shot up 51 places in the FIFA World Rankings, despite the fact that the islands have never produced a professional player, soccer is the third most popular sport on the islands, and the team does not have a national stadium for soccer in which to play.
Read more about United States Virgin Islands National Soccer Team: Stadium, World Cup Record, Gold Cup Record, U.S Virgin Islands International Record, Current Squad, Coaches, Technical Directors
Famous quotes containing the words united states, united, states, virgin, islands, national, soccer and/or team:
“I have ever deemed it fundamental for the United States never to take active part in the quarrels of Europe. Their political interests are entirely distinct from ours. Their mutual jealousies, their balance of power, their complicated alliances, their forms and principles of government, are all foreign to us. They are nations of eternal war.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
“There was no speculation so promising, or at the same time so praisworthy, as the United Metropolitan Improved Hot Muffin and Crumpet Baking and Punctual Delivery Company.”
—Charles Dickens (1812–1870)
“Courage, then, for the end draws near! A few more years of persistent, faithful work and the women of the United States will be recognized as the legal equals of men.”
—Mary A. Livermore (1821–1905)
“The spring is here, young and beautiful as ever, and absolutely shocking in its display of reckless maternity; but the Judas tree will bloom for you on the Bosphorus if you get there in time. No one ever loved the dog-wood and Judas tree as I have done, and it is my one crown of life to be sure that I am going to take them with me to heaven to enjoy real happiness with the Virgin and them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“What are the islands to me
if you are lost
what is Naxos, Tinos, Andros,
and Delos, the clasp
of the white necklace?”
—Hilda Doolittle (1886–1961)
“Let us waive that agitated national topic, as to whether such multitudes of foreign poor should be landed on our American shores; let us waive it, with the one only thought, that if they can get here, they have God’s right to come.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“If we were doing this in the Falklands they would love it. It’s part of our heritage. The British have always been fighting wars.”
—British soccer fan. quoted in Independent (London, Dec. 23, 1988)
“Is my team ploughing,
That I was used to drive
And hear the harness jingle
When I was man alive?”
—A.E. (Alfred Edward)