They share the same name, the same complicated history, and are separated by just 50km of Caribbean sea. They sit next to each other in the Fifa rankings and are about to play each other for a shot at international glory. This weekend, the road to World Cup 2026 begins in earnest with the resumption of a nascent rivalry: the British Virgin Islands against the US Virgin Islands, it’s on, baby!
Well, maybe not quite. “OK, it’s going to sound corny, but at the end of the day we’re all Virgin Islanders,” says Yohannes Worede, the president of the US Virgin Islands Soccer Federation. “To call it a rivalry is tough because there’s a good chance that some of our players are even related to the British Virgin Islands. But what I will say is that when the lights shine bright, the US Virgin Islands comes to the table.”
The British and US Virgin Islands are placed 207 and 208 respectively in the Fifa rankings for men’s international teams. That puts them ahead of only Anguilla and San Marino, and Friday night’s fixture at the Bethlehem Soccer Stadium in St Croix, one of the three main US Virgin Islands, is the first of a two-leg playoff to enter Concacaf qualification proper. It will be the first time the countries have faced each other in more than a decade and only the ninth time ever. But it’s a match-up of two countries desperate to grow their foothold in the international game.
“You know, I’m a realist,” says Worede. “We don’t have the expectation that we’re going to win the World Cup. Of course, we have the grander ambition of someday to make it to the World Cup. But do I see that in the next eight years? I’m not that foolhardy. But I can see us becoming a force to be reckoned with within our region.”
The US Virgin Islands (USVI) team is mostly made up of players from local amateur sides or those in the US academic system. The exception is the 35-year-old captain, JC Mack, who was born in the US state of Virginia and plays in New Zealand. He is the country’s record scorer, with three goals.
The British Virgin Islands (BVI) has a population of just 31,000 (compared with more than 100,000 in the USVI) but draws from a broader pool, including some players from English non-league football. Prominent among this cohort is the teenager Luka Chalwell, who plays for Eastleigh in the National League and scored twice as the BVI beat the Turks and Caicos Islands 3-1 in the Concacaf Nations League last autumn. That was their first win in 11 years and earned the coach, the former Ipswich and Arsenal striker Chris Kiwomya, personal thanks from the country’s premier. They go into this tie unbeaten in three matches.
“It’s a local derby, even if it’s not Tottenham v Arsenal, or England v Scotland,” says Kiwomya. “For the local people it does mean a lot, and I think the US Virgin Islands won the last encounter in 2011, so we want to try and do well. The players are looking forward to it, and the winners go through and play against Jamaica, Guatemala, Dominica and the Dominican Republic, so the stakes are high.”
Kiwomya talks of the challenges of coaching a country where the population is small, the squad all hold full-time jobs and every piece of equipment has to be shipped in from overseas. “We were playing against Dominica and we lost a key player because he couldn’t get time off work,” he says. “When I came out here, everybody would just play for fun, and now we’re trying to compete, to play to win.”
The Virgin Islands archipelago was given its name by Christopher Columbus after he inadvertently landed on St Croix during his voyage of 1492-96. The islands became territories fiercely contested by rival colonial powers. Under the Danish, Dutch and British, the collection of about 90 islands and islets changed hands several times and became lucrative sites for sugar plantations and hungry consumers of slave labour. In 1916, Denmark sold its share of the Virgin Islands to the United States for $25m in gold. In 1967, after nearly three centuries of British rule, the remaining islands became politically autonomous, though they remain British sovereign territory.
In the 21st century, the British Virgin Islands are perhaps known best as a tax haven, home to – among other things – the company that once loaned Lewis Hamilton his own private jet. The US Virgin Islands are a popular holiday destination for spring breakers, but also the site of what was one of the biggest oil refineries in the world, until it was shut by the US government three years ago owing to environmental concerns.
Both sets of islands remain some of the wealthiest parts of the Caribbean and as such an attractive place for people elsewhere in the region to come and live. It’s this dynamism that makes USVI’s Worede believe that there is scope for greater footballing success in the archipelago.
“Historically, as an American territory, football always took a back seat. We never really had a real culture of club football. But the opening of the oil refinery in 1967 led to a need to bring people in to the islands and brought us a whole new middle class. These people came from elsewhere in the Caribbean, what we call ‘down island’, and played football. Now we have a generation that was born here that have sort of grown into the game.”
For Kiwomya, the experience of playing in matches that matter will help to grow the game in the BVI. “The gap can be big, but it’s up for us to close it, isn’t it?” he says. “It’s up for us to have these experiences. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but we can see the development on and off the pitch and there’s a confidence now which is the scariest thing. We’re going into games thinking we should beat teams and I’m the one trying to calm them down!”
