Puerto Rico Women

Grenada conceded twelve without reply in a 2015 qualifier, and nine years later the Cayman Islands took the same scoreline. Between those two afternoons sits most of what the Puerto Rico women's national team has been: capable of overwhelming the smallest sides in the region, and stuck at the group stage whenever the opposition gets bigger. The side that went out in the groups of the CONCACAF W Championship in 1998 was replaced, eventually, by a side that went out in the groups again in 2024.

That 1998 tournament came in the same year the team was assembled under the Federación Puertorriqueña de Fútbol. Neither the World Cup nor the Olympics has followed.

Karina Socarrás holds both of the numbers that matter here — 25 caps and 25 goals — a symmetry that says as much about how rarely the team plays as about how often she scored. The current squad draws on players scattered across the professional game: Danielle Marcano at Valencia CF, Jillienne Aguilera at Carolina Ascent FC. The captain, Nickolette Driesse, came through the United States under-20 setup before choosing Puerto Rico.

Home is usually the Estadio Juan Ramón Loubriel in Bayamón, 12,500 seats, though the team has also played in Mayagüez and, further afield, at the Bethlehem Soccer Stadium in the United States Virgin Islands.

The opponents that recur are Caribbean: Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and above all Haiti, who turn up on the fixture list more than anyone else. Regional qualifying groups are small and the draw brings them together early, so Las Boricuas measure themselves against Haiti more or less by default — and Haiti is the neighbour that shows what the ceiling could look like.