🇰🇳 Sugar Boyz taste sweet success sooner than scheduled

Ahead of a match with the USMNT, the country of 50,000 people is putting its faith in a long-term plan.

When former MLS player Atiba Harris took over as the FA president in his native St. Kitts and Nevis, he knew he would need structure, a vision, guiding principles, and some goals along the way to make sure things stayed on track.

He needed a plan.

Now, with St. Kitts and Nevis in the Gold Cup for the first time ever, preparing for tonight’s game against the United States, it’s clear it’s all going to plan.

Actually, even the plan’s expectations have been surpassed by St. Kitts and Nevis winning a pair of Gold Cup qualification matches and getting into the group stage.

Romaine Sawyers speaks to his St. Kitts and Nevis teammates during their first-ever Gold Cup match. (Photo by Megan Briggs/Getty Images)

“We put a technical development plan in place in anticipation of qualifying for major tournaments,” Harris told me this week. “This qualification happened a little bit sooner than expectation, but nevertheless we’re continuing to develop our programs from youth and grassroots all the way up to the senior level.”

Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, St. Kitts and Nevis is small. Its entire population of just less than 50,000 would fit into Levi’s Stadium, where the Sugar Boyz will play their final Gold Cup group game, and still have room for some of the diaspora.

That’s not the point, Harris says. Instead of focusing on the country’s limitations, the plan is to emphasize its potential.

“It’s already having a ripple effect on our youth,” he said. “Our U-15 boys are currently earmarked as the one that’s going to be our golden generation. These young players are now inspired and even dreaming bigger.

“For the nation itself, qualifying for the Gold Cup for the first time has helped our country to unify, it’s brought our country together pretty much for the first time ever through this game.”

Harris’ plan goes beyond just the senior men’s team. He helped start a women’s league on the island, fought for infrastructure improvements including lighting at the national team’s home stadium Warner Park and at the SKNFA Technical Center, and is hosting the Concacaf Caribbean Shield club competition.

St. Kitts and Nevis’ mens squad got to this point by winning its Nations League group in League C. That earned a spot in the Gold Cup qualification round, but a draw with Curacao looked daunting after the country’s success in recent years.

St. Kitts and Nevis went behind in the 22nd minute when Jürgen Locadia scored his first Curacao goal, but Tyquan Terrell found a tying goal to send the game to a shootout that SKN won. In the second round against French Guiana, it was the Sugar Boyz going up early but French Guiana equalizing to force a shootout. SKN converted all four kicks and moved into the Gold Cup proper.

While grassroots development is important, sometimes one player can be an equalizer in the moment. St. Kitts and Nevis goalkeeper Julani Archibald made stops in both penalty shootouts. Playing at the Lorca Deportiva club now run by former SKN manager Jacques Passy, Archibald is one of the dozen players on the 23-man roster based abroad.

Archibald goes for a penalty during the shootout against Curacao. (via Concacaf.com)

Unlike other teams who have surged in the past, St. Kitts and Nevis’ project also has a very homegrown feel. Manager Austin Huggins was born in Basseterre and scored 11 goals in 36 matches for St. Kitts and Nevis.

During his pre-match news conference in St. Louis he expressed a strong attraction to the city’s famous arch, but it’s clear he has no desire to relocate to the Midwest.

“St. Kitts and Nevis is the closest you can ever get to heaven. They’re the best places to be,” Huggins said. “Our country, I think everybody will be glued to the TV, partying, celebrating because this is our opportunity to showcase our twin island federation. We have to carry our country boldly. This is something we take very serious.”

While Harris says he welcomes players who come from the diaspora, he wants to thinking of the long-term rather than just trying to get results today.

“We have to start at home, developing the foundation building on something, and it's why we develop a technical development plan,” Harris said.

While Archibald’s actions on the field have been critical for St. Kitts and Nevis, he, too, goes back to that plan.

“We tried many times and failed, but we have a new president and he set up a project, brought in a new technical director Lenny Taylor and they sat down and brought forth a project going up to World Cup 2026,” Archibald said. “I think everybody bought into the project.”

Surely if it were that simple, all nations on the outside looking in at the Gold Cup would put a technical plan in place, invest in grassroots and reap the rewards. Yet, Harris said setting expectations, focusing on boys and girls playing and getting competition at a young age, and turning the island’s small size into a benefit with frequent training camps is the straightforward formula.

Harris with legendary player Claude Makelele, who worked as technical adviser for SKNFA, St. Kitts and Nevis’ prime minister Terrance Drew and the country’s minister of sports.

He believes in that formula and his country so strongly, he cut his playing career in the U.S. short, moving back to the islands with his wife and four daughters to start this work.

“We always believed we had the talent. We just needed to put the structure in place,” he said.

No one thinks the work is done.

SKN nearly kept a clean sheet in the first half of its historic Gold Cup debut, but conceded to Trinidad and Tobago just before the halftime break. The Soca Warriors controlled the second half to earn a 3-0 victory.

Even so, ahead of a showdown with the reigning Gold Cup champion, no one in the St. Kitts and Nevis locker room wants to make any excuses about what might happen on the field when their small country goes up against the region’s giant.

“Is it easy to make the excuse, yes, but at the end of the day it’s 11 v. 11 on the field,” said Archibald, who also mentioned the team takes inspiration from Saudi Arabia’s World Cup win over eventual champion Argentina. “Yes, the USA has 300 million plus people and we just have 50,000, but we just go out there and give it our best shot for our country.

“We’re fighting for our country, no matter if we’re facing Argentina, the USA or Anguilla, we’re representing our country at 100 percent, every single time.”