The Dominican National Football Team, currently participating in the qualifying rounds for the 1998 World Cup, has progressed more than any other team this year in the FIFA rankings, going up from number 159 to 116, after defeating Aruba and Curaçao in the first two matches in the eliminatory rounds leading to France 1998. Although it is quite unlikely that the team will qualify for the World Cup, its performance in the first two rounds has impressed most observers in the Caribbean. The team, coached by Juan José Carretero, met their match, however, against Trinidad & Tobago on Saturday, 15 June when they lost by four goals to one to the visitors at Santo Domingo’s Olympic Stadium.
The dramatic rise of the Dominican team in FIFA’s rankings has been of great satisfaction to the country’s football fans, as traditionally, baseball and, more recently, basketball have dominated the newspapers’ sports sections and the television programs.