Viewing parties will be held at four locations in Los Angeles County Friday for the telecast of the U.S. men’s soccer team’s opening game in qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup.
The opening kickoff from the game against St. Vincent & the Grenadines from St. Louis is set for 3:30 p.m. Pacific time. The game will be televised in English by ESPN2, and in Spanish by UniMas and cable’s Univision Deportes Network.
The watch parties will be held at:
— The Man Cave Ultimate Sports Bar and Lounge, 3575 Cahuenga Blvd., Universal City;
— Shannon’s On Pine, 209 Pine Ave., Long Beach;
— Underground Pub & Grill, 1332 Hermosa Ave., Hermosa Beach; and
— Q’s Billiard Club, 11835 Wilshire Blvd., Brentwood.
The viewing parties are organized by various chapters of American Outlaws, a nationwide support group for the U.S. men’s and women’s national soccer teams.
The game is the first of six for the U.S. in the semifinal round of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup. The top two teams in the four-team Group C will qualify for the final round of qualifying.
The U.S. is 33rd in the rankings compiled by FIFA, soccer’s international governing body, with one victory, four losses and a tie in its last six games. St. Vincent & the Grenadines is ranked 129th.
The 23-man U.S. roster includes five players with ties to the Los Angeles area — Los Angeles Galaxy forwards Alan Gordon and Gyasi Zardes; midfielder Miguel Ibarra, a former UC Irvine and Lancaster High School standout; defender Michael Orozco, who was born in Orange; and forward Bobby Wood, who played for the Irvine Strikers club team.
The U.S. team consists of 12 players who play in Major League Soccer, five who play in England, three in Mexico, two in Germany and one college player, Stanford forward Jordan Morris.
St. Vincent & the Grenadines is an archipelago of islands in the eastern Caribbean that gained independence from Britain in 1979. Its population of 111,380, is about equal to Inglewood.
The St. Vincent & the Grenadines team is known as Vincy Heat. It consists of 15 players who play in St. Vincent & the Grenadines, two in Finland, one each in Antigua, Barbados, England and Trinidad & Tobago and two with Seattle Sounders FC 2, the United Soccer League team coached by former Los Angeles Galaxy defender Ezra Hendrickson, also an assistant coach with the St. Vincent & the Grenadines team.
This is the first meeting between the two teams. St. Vincent & the Grenadines is 1-23-1 against teams from outside the Caribbean.
—City News Service