PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad: Less than one year after Spain beat Netherlands to win the World Cup, the circus starts again Wednesday although the opening match of the 2014 qualifying tournament will cause barely a ripple. Tiny Montserrat, who have won only two international matches, are scheduled to face Belize on neutral territory in a match which will be a far cry from last year's game at Soccer City, watched by an estimated 700 million television viewers. Soccer's governing body FIFA said that the game, to be staged at Malabar, Trinidad & Tobago because Montserrat does not have a suitable stadium, will not be televised and only a handful of spectators are expected. The preliminary round first leg tie is the first of an expected 832 qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil in which all but five of FIFA's member association's are set to take part. Running Montserrat's national team has become a complicated exercise since the 1995 volcanic eruption which forced more than half the island's people to move abroad, burying the capital Plymouth and reducing the population from 12,000 to 4,700. They are joint 202nd and last in the FIFA rankings alongside Anguilla, who are also in action, Andorra, Papua-New Guinea, American Samoa and San Marino. Belize are 172nd in the FIFA rankings and coach Jose de la Paz Herrera has World Cup experience as the 70-year-old led his native Honduras to the Finals in Spain in 1982, the first of their only two appearances at the tournament. Although the main draw for the 2014 qualifiers will take place in Rio de Janeiro on July 30, a number of preliminary matches will be played in CONCACAF and Asia before then. Eight other teams are involved in the CONCACAF preliminaries with Anguilla facing Dominican Republic, the US Virgin Islands taking on the British Virgin Islands, Aruba meeting St. Lucia and Bahamas facing the Turks and Caicos Islands. These matches are due to be played in the next few weeks but the dates have not been announced. Belize are due to host Montserrat in the return Sunday. Europe will have 13 places at the 2014 Finals, with five for Africa, 4.5 for South America and Asia, 3.5 for CONCACAF and 0.5 for Oceania. Brazil qualify automatically as hosts. Pakistan football, meanwhile, said Tuesday it was confident next month's home World Cup qualifier against Bangladesh will go ahead, promising tight security for the match. After the first leg of their Asian zone qualifier for the 2014 World Cup in Dhaka on June 29, the two sides were scheduled to meet in Lahore on July 3. But arrangements ran into trouble after Bangladesh asked FIFA, the game's ruling body, to relocate the match due to security fears. FIFA has apparently rejected the request in a move welcomed by Pakistan Football Federation (PFF) secretary Ahmed Yar Khan Lodhi.
