Jamaica will oppose Haiti in their opening game of the five-day North, Central American and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation (NORCECA)/Federation Internationale de Volleyball (FIVB) World Championships qualifiers at the National Indoor Sports Centre today, starting at 7 p.m.

In the day's opening game at 5 p.m., St Lucia will tackle The Bahamas.

The six participating teams at the tournament have been divided into two groups, with Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Haiti playing in Pool A and Mexico, St Lucia and The Bahamas competing in Pool B.

The top-two teams from each pool will move on to the semi-finals, where they will play in cross-zone matches, with the winners securing spots in the third round.

Strongest team

The Mexicans are rated as the strongest team among those participating, currently ranked sixth in NORCECA.

David Jack, the coach of Jamaica, is very optimistic of his team's chances going into the tournament.

"We are very confident group of individuals, who are becoming a well-balanced team going into this tournament," said Jack.

Jack added that preparations have been very intense since last September because of the training methods that they implemented during their workouts.

"We are very athletic and very offensive and we are trying to become a lot more defensive-minded, which is a necessary tool as we build towards future success," Jack said.

The Jamaica coach added that he is expecting a tough match from all the teams in the competition.

"Everybody is a threat to us until we beat them. But our players are very motivated to win this leg and to move on to the next round of the competition."

Home crowd

"The Haitians play off their emotions and we have to make sure that we use our home crowd to our advantage because this is going to be a very exciting game," Jack reasoned.

The Jamaican team, which will be captained by Delford Henry, also includes two overseas-based players in Parrish Offer who plies his trade in the Denmark professional league and Collin Henry, who plays in New York.

The rest of the Jamaican team members are Robert Andrews, Dellan Brown, Ricardo Chong, Omar Frazer, Namarie Gordon, Shavoy Irving, Mark Lewis, Andre McLean, Richard Reynolds, Donovan Richards, Delroy Salmon, Errol Smith, Conaradio Taylor and Dany Wilson.

The Haitians are not expected to be well rested for the encounter as they are scheduled to arrive in the island close to noon today.