These five players with South Florida ties are playing in World Cup qualifiers Thursday
South Florida will be well represented as the next round of qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar get underway in the Americas Thursday and continue through Sept. 9.
Five players with local ties will be in action Thursday night — Inter Miami’s Rodolfo Pizarro (Mexico), Miami’s FC’s Lamar Walker (Jamaica), Speedy Williams (Jamaica) and Joshua Perez (El Salvador), and Miami native/Marseille winger Konrad (United States).
Inter Miami forward Robbie Robinson, a dual U.S.-Chilean citizen raised in South Carolina, was expected to make his debut for Chile against Brazil Thursday night, but he had a change of heart and flew back from camp to South Florida Wednesday night.
The arrival of the young forward had made big headlines in Chile. Tuesday he had his first press conference and said he was honored to wear the Chilean shirt, was impressed with the high level of his first training session and closed by sharing three phrases he knows in Spanish: “Hola, Adios, Viva Chile!”
But Robinson opted instead to return home and leave open the option of playing for the United States.
Chile plays its first of three September games at 9 p.m. Thursday against a depleted Brazil team, which will be missing nine players from the English Premier League.
Premier League clubs said they would ban players from traveling to South American nations which are red-listed by the British government because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Any players who go have to spend 10 days in hotel quarantine upon their return, which means they would likely be unavailable for mid-September EPL matches.
Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A have also been reluctant to let players travel to South America.
Brazil’s missing players include Alisson Becker (Liverpool), Ederson (Manchester City), captain Thiago Silva (Chelsea), Fred (Manchester United), Fabinho (Liverpool), Roberto Firmino (Liverpool), Gabriel Jesus (Manchester City) and Richarlison (Everton).
Argentina will be without some players, but will have Lionel Messi, playing for the first time since joining Paris Saint-Germain. Four Argentine players traveled and will play just the first two games: Aston Villa’s Emiliano Martinez and Emiliano Buendia and Tottenham’s Giovanni Lo Celso and Cristian Romero.
Colombia is expected to get Davinson Sanchez (Tottenham) for two games, Uruguay is without Edinson Cavani (Manchester United).
Through six of 18 qualifying matches Brazil is in first place with six wins (18 points), followed by Argentina (12), Ecuador (9), Uruguay and Colombia (8). The top four advance to the World Cup and the fifth-place team enters an interconfederation playoff. Paraguay is in sixth place now and Chile in seventh.
The United States plays on the road against El Salvador Thursday (10 p.m., CBS Sports Network). The U.S. roster includes 17 Europe-based players and nine from MLS.
Two locals players will be in that game — Konrad for the U.S. team and Perez, who joined Miami FC last week, for El Salvador. Miami FC coach Paul Dalglish said Perez “is going to be a good one from what I saw last week. When he gets into position he picks the right pass, he can finish, he has quality. You have lots of players in America who are big and strong, but he’s got loads of quality.”
The Mexico vs Jamaica game (10 p.m.) features Pizarro against Walker and Williams from Miami FC.
Dalglish called 20-year-old Walker “the young hope of the Jamaican national team” and said it was only because of COVID that Miami FC got to sign him because he was headed to Belgium. Walker scored two goals in Miami’s 3-0 win over New York Red Bulls II last week.
Williams is “the best midfield player in this country outside of MLS,” Dalglish said. “On and off the field he’s a really good professional. In the Gold Cup he played for Jamaica ahead of a lot of people that were at bigger clubs with higher reputations; he’s genuinely that good. He’s a connector. If he had his green card, he would be in MLS for sure.”
Miami FC, which is unbeaten in the past 12 games in the USL Championship league, plays on the road against Charlotte Sept. 4 and Memphis Sept. 11 and returns home to FIU’s Riccardo Silva Stadium Sept. 18 against Charleston. For tickets, go to miamifc.com/tickets
Inter Miami is on the road against Cincinnati FC on Saturday and plays at home Sept. 11 against Columbus. For tickets, go to intermiamicf.com/tickets/
This story was originally published September 1, 2021 at 4:22 PM.