Curtis Walker Interview

JEFFERSON CITY, Tenn. – Carson-Newman men's soccer player Curtis Walker (Mount Vernon, N.Y.) recently returned to Mossy Creek after spending time with the U.S. Virgin Islands National Team during 2018 FIFA World Cup Qualifying.

Walker represented the 106,405-population nation in three total matches, which included two matches against Barbados in World Cup Qualifying and an international friendly. 

Walker played in a 2-0 friendly loss for his native U.S. Virgin Islands against Antigua and Barbuda and was on the bench for the two legs of World Cup Qualifying matches against Barbados.

In the qualifiers, the U.S. Virgin Islands won the first leg of the series 1-0 to snap a six-game World Cup losing streak, but Barbados won the second leg 4-0 to advance to the next stage of qualifying via a 4-1 aggregate.

Although the freshman did not play in the World Cup games, he was able to still learn from the games.

"It's a pretty cool experience. The level of professionalism is pretty high. It's just quite different, all the rules, and it was kind of a shock to me how structured it was but it was a good experience," Walker said.

Walker was a member of a team mostly complied of newcomers for the matches. Six of the 23 players were 18 years old or younger. The U.S. Virgin Islands have hopes of qualifying for the 2016 Caribbean Cup, an event the country will host, and the 2017 Gold Cup.

The team's win over Barbados broke a three year losing streak and the first win in World Cup play over a team that was not the British Virgin Islands.

Last season, Walker did not see any action for coach Richard Moodie's team, but he said there were two majors proponents of the international game that he will help him be prepared to play next season for Eagles F.C.

"It's really fast and the contact is really high as well. I took a lot of contact my first year, getting used to that still. It helped me, the physicality that I have here, so it was good."

The U.S. Virgin Islands are ranked 197^th in the latest FIFA Rankings.