标签： Jamaica

FOXBOROUGH, U.S. – As the 2026 FIFA Women’s World Cup enters its second group stage matchday, Scotland’s men’s national side stands 90 minutes away from writing a new chapter in the country’s decades-long World Cup drought history. Captain Andy Robertson has made the team’s ambition clear: build on a hard-fought opening win and secure a positive result against Morocco on Friday that would push the Scots into the tournament’s knockout round for the first time ever.

In a pre-match press conference held at Gillette Stadium on the eve of the fixture, Robertson acknowledged that every member of the squad, coaching team and support staff has openly embraced this historic goal. “We want to be the first group to do this for our country, and there’s a really special feeling chasing that milestone,” the 32-year-old fullback told reporters. “We don’t hide from how tough this challenge is — we’re facing one of the top teams in the world. But if we bring our best performance, we can make things hard for any opponent, and that’s something we’ve proven over many years.”

Robertson, who recently completed a high-profile move from Liverpool to Tottenham Hotspur after nearly 10 years at Anfield, led Scotland to a narrow 1-0 opening victory over Haiti last weekend at the same Boston-area venue. That win marked a number of long-awaited milestones for Scottish football: it was the nation’s first World Cup match since 1998, its first tournament win since 1990, and only the fifth Scottish victory at a World Cup finals in the country’s history.

The expanded 48-team format of this year’s tournament has created a more accessible path to the knockout round, with the eight best third-placed teams across the 12 groups advancing to the next stage. Under the current rules, just one point from Scotland’s remaining two group fixtures could be enough to secure progression. But a tough path lies ahead for the Scots: after facing Morocco, they wrap up Group C play against five-time World Cup champions Brazil in Miami, with both Morocco and Brazil ranking among the top six teams in the latest FIFA world rankings. The 2022 World Cup semi-finalists Morocco will present a particularly daunting challenge, one that carries extra historical weight for Scotland.

The two sides last met in Scotland’s final group match at the 1998 World Cup in France, where a lopsided 3-0 defeat eliminated the Scots from the tournament. Those painful memories are not lost on the current camp. Scotland head coach Steve Clarke admitted his side has a clear understanding of how tough the task ahead is. “Morocco is an incredibly strong side. They made it to the semi-finals four years ago, and I think this current group is even better than that 2022 team,” Clarke said.

Despite the challenge, Clarke sees an upside to going into the match as clear underdogs, a role that fits Scotland’s national mentality better than being the favored side. When they faced Haiti last week, Scotland was the higher-ranked favorite, and the team struggled through a tight contest before claiming the win. “Sometimes the Scottish mentality means we’re more comfortable when everyone writes us off,” Clarke explained. “Against Haiti we were the favorites, and we had a real fight to get the win. This time around we’re the underdogs, and that’s a position Scotland often thrives in.”

Off the pitch, Robertson has high praise for the legions of Scottish fans that have traveled across the Atlantic to support the team, who have already won over locals in the Boston area. The famous Tartan Army, Scotland’s passionate supporter contingent, has gone viral on social media for taking over the city, including a well-documented fan visit to Fenway Park to attend a Boston Red Sox MLB game.

As a former Liverpool player, Robertson has a personal connection to the Red Sox organization: Fenway Sports Group, which owns Liverpool, also owns the Boston baseball club. Robertson revealed that the group’s owners were thrilled by the Tartan Army’s visit. “One of the owners sent me a lovely message saying how happy they were to see all the Scotland fans there,” he said. “They loved seeing all the kilts and Scotland shirts, hearing the fans’ songs, and the whole party atmosphere the Tartan Army brought to the ballgame. They’ve been incredible, these fans.”

KINGSTON, Jamaica — On the opening day of semi-final competition at the Jamaican Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) National Championships, rising young sprinter Daniellia Dixon delivered a standout performance, clocking a new personal best time of 53.47 seconds to secure the top qualifying position for Sunday’s highly anticipated Under-20 girls 400-meter final.

Dixon, a former standout athlete from William Knibb Memorial High School, has built consistent momentum heading into this weekend’s national showdown. Earlier this athletics season, she claimed fourth place in the girls Class Two final at the prestigious ISSA/GraceKennedy Boys’ and Girls’ Athletics Championships, one of Jamaica’s most high-profile high school track and field competitions. She went on to match that fourth-place result at the regional Carifta Games, a key developmental tournament showcasing top young talent across the Caribbean. Now, Dixon is targeting more than just a national medal: a strong finish on Sunday would earn her an individual berth on Jamaica’s team for the World Under-20 Championships, scheduled to take place this August in Eugene, Oregon.

She is far from the only promising young Jamaican sprinter advancing to the 400m final. Shameika McLean of Foga Road High, who enters the championships as the fastest schoolgirl in Jamaica this season with an personal best of 52.22 seconds, also booked her spot in the final after crossing the finish line in 53.90 seconds in her semi-final heat. Joining Dixon and McLean in the final field are Davine Dickenson of Immaculate Conception, who posted a time of 54.78 seconds; Shanika Lindsay of Alphansus Davis High, who finished her semi in 54.92 seconds; and Kristen Herbert of Holmwood Technical, who clocked 55.10 seconds to advance.

In addition to the 400m semi-finals, Friday’s competition schedule crowned a new national champion in the throwing events. Shamanda Wilmot, representing Holmwood Technical, claimed the gold medal in the Under-18 girls’ javelin competition with a winning throw of 43.55 meters, closing out the day of preliminary and final action with another strong performance from a Jamaican young athlete.

Jamaican women’s football is entering a new phase of structured growth, with boosting women’s representation in senior administrative and leadership positions emerging as a core priority for the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) as it works to expand the sport across the country.

In a recent collaborative launch alongside global governing body FIFA and Professional Women’s Football Jamaica Limited (PWFJL), the JFF unveiled an ambitious Women’s Strategic Plan that maps out a clear set of development goals to be achieved by 2031. While growing the pool of professional female players and certified women coaches stands as two central pillars of the 10-year plan, Carlene Edwards, chair of the JFF Projects Committee for Women’s Programmes, emphasized in an interview with the Jamaica Observer that closing the gender gap in football administration is equally critical to long-term, sustainable progress.

Though Jamaica already counts several high-profile women in key football leadership roles — including JFF vice-president Elaine Walker-Brown, PWFJL chair Christina Hudson, and Reggae Girlz national team manager Crystal Walters alongside Edwards — women still remain significantly underrepresented across administrative bodies at all levels of the sport. Edwards notes that a large pool of current and former female players are eager to contribute their expertise to grow the game, but have long lacked structured pathways to step into leadership roles.

“What I’ve seen over the past two years of my direct involvement is that there are so many women, both active current players and retired athletes, who want to give back to the sport that shaped them — but they don’t want to put their time and energy into unstructured, unfocused initiatives,” Edwards explained. “They want to join a system where work is already being driven forward, where their contributions will matter. On the Jamaica Women’s Premier League side, we work hard to keep our programs moving forward, so my recommendation to the JFF is to hire a dedicated head of women’s football that can fully own the execution of this new strategic plan. Right now, no single person is positioned to own this work full-time, even with our committee in place to support progress.”

Marlo Sweatman, a retired former midfielder who was part of Jamaica’s historic 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup squad — the first Caribbean team to ever qualify for the tournament’s knockout stage — echoed Edwards’ observations, saying she and dozens of her former compatriots are ready and willing to step in to support the growth of the next generation.

“Honestly, I don’t think there are nearly enough accessible opportunities for former players to stay involved in the sport,” Sweatman said. “We’ve made clear progress in recent years, but there is still so much more work to be done. Former players carry so much unique knowledge and hard-won experience that can lift up emerging athletes, whether that contribution comes in coaching, administrative leadership, or player development. We need far more structured pathways for players to step into these roles after they retire from competition.”

Sweatman pointed to established transition programs in top North American leagues as a model for Jamaica to adapt. “In the MLS, WNBA, and NBA, there are formal programs that create clear pathways for former players to move into full-time roles within the industry, whether that’s in the corporate side of the sport or in development roles that let them share their experience,” she noted. “Right now, that kind of structured pathway just doesn’t exist for women’s football in most parts of the world, including here. There’s real potential here, and I’d love to see more former players get the chance to get involved.”

For Edwards, the ultimate goal is to turn the growing enthusiasm among current and retired female players into tangible, lasting leadership change that will secure the future of Jamaican women’s football. “At the league level, we’re almost ready to support full execution of our strategic programs in any way we can, and we’ve already met so many young women who are eager to give back,” she said. “One of my core commitments is identifying these passionate women and training them up to take on leadership roles. Christina and I won’t be in these positions forever, so we need to build a smooth leadership transition. When we step away, we need a new generation of leaders ready to carry forward the work we’ve started. That’s my biggest passion: building a talent pool of skilled women leaders, getting them into positions of responsibility, and getting to work building a better future for women’s football in Jamaica.”

For the Haitian diaspora clustered in New York City, a rare moment of collective celebration has cut through months of uncertainty and targeting from the Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies: their men’s national soccer team is set to make only its second World Cup appearance in history, and first since 1974, when it faces global powerhouse Brazil on Friday.

Walking through the city’s iconic Little Haiti neighborhood, the blue and orange of the New York Knicks — fresh off the team’s NBA championship win just days earlier — still drapes nearly every local storefront. But long-term residents and community members say that display is already set to make way for Haiti’s iconic blue and red national flag, as attention shifts to the historic World Cup match.

“Now the Knicks excitement is over, you’ll definitely see all the Haitian colors everywhere,” said 42-year-old actor Vladimir Calixte, who wore his national flag wrapped around his neck during a walk through the neighborhood.

The outbreak of national pride serves as a much-needed reprieve for a community that has felt directly in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s aggressive mass deportation campaign targeting undocumented people living in the United States. Haiti, which has long struggled with widespread political instability and brutal gang violence, has faced disproportionate scrutiny from the current White House: Trump suspended all tourist and immigration visas for Haitian citizens last year, and his administration is moving to revoke Temporary Protected Status (TPS), a program that prevents deportations to countries facing crisis or unsafe conditions. Around 520,000 Haitians currently hold TPS protections across the U.S.

New York is home to roughly 200,000 residents who were either born in Haiti or are of Haitian descent, and for this tight-knit community, the national soccer team’s historic World Cup berth has become a unifying source of pride. Local small business owner Maelie Misidor, who runs a corner convenience store in Little Haiti, says conversations about the match have dominated every interaction in her shop since the team qualified.

“Tickets are completely out of most people’s price range. If they were cheaper, I’d be there in a heartbeat,” Misidor explained. “Instead, my husband, our friends, and I are going to set up a viewing in the local courtyard to watch the game together.”
Brooklyn-based Haitian artist Lyne Lucien notes that the team’s roster itself reflects the experience of the global Haitian diaspora, with a large share of players hailing from communities outside Haiti’s borders. “Haiti extends far beyond our actual land borders,” Lucien explained. “Our community looks just like the team: people spread out all across the world, but we still come together as one people.” That shared identity has drawn the community even closer to the team during its historic run.

Yet even as the community prepares to cheer on their national side, a new threat from the Trump administration has cast a shadow over the celebration: reports that the administration would deploy Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to World Cup match stadiums to target undocumented migrants has spread widespread fear across Haitian and other migrant communities.

“I feel like that’s creating completely unnecessary fear,” said Lucien, who created custom illustrations for the FOX Sports Global Artist Series, an official collaboration with FIFA. “There’s so much anxiety right now: even people who hold valid U.S. residency cards are afraid to go to the matches. People who just got their citizenship are still scared to be there around law enforcement.”

Haiti dropped its opening World Cup match to Scotland, putting added pressure on the team against its upcoming match against Brazil — a side that many Haitians have supported enthusiastically in past tournaments, Calixte explained. “You feel more attached to people that look like you. Before we qualified, since we couldn’t play at this level, we admired the teams that could,” he said. Not everyone holds out hope for an upset against the five-time World Cup champions: 43-year-old Sonny Etienne, who was waiting for a haircut at a local Little Haiti barbershop, called the matchup a tough break for the underdog Haitian side.

“Brazilians are the undisputed leaders of world football. What can we do against them? It’s too bad we had to draw them in our group,” Etienne said.