Women’s football in the Concacaf region continues to improve, and there is no better example of that than in the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola Women’s World Ranking. Both El Salvador and Dominican Republic skyrocketed eight points thanks to their respective performances in the first stage of qualifying for the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2027™.
While their fortunes in the preliminaries were split – El Salvador punched their ticket to the 2026 Concacaf W Championship and Dominican Republic narrowly missed out – their hearty climbs in the ranking are the fruit of hard work that goes back several years.
Just eight years ago, El Salvador’s situation was very different. Las Cuscatlecas went winless in the first round of qualifying for France 2019 and finished -15 on goal difference. By December 2021, their ranking had fallen to 119th, yet it was around this time that their fortunes started to change.
In arrived Eric Acuna to not only take over as head coach of the senior team, but also El Salvador’s U-17 and U-20 teams. In that time, he has searched endlessly not just every corner of El Salvador, but all parts of North America to hold camps for players eligible to suit up for the blue and white.
His recruitment has strengthened El Salvador’s teams across the board and provided more internal competition. The result has been a senior team with players that have risen up through the youth ranks together and achieved the country’s highest-ever ranking of 78th following their 3-0 win over Honduras, 13-0 victory against Barbados and 2-0 triumph at Trinidad and Tobago in qualifying. They are on the precipice of the country’s first ticket to a Women’s World Cup in any age category, as a win over four-time world champions USA in November would get the job done.
“I love this job very much, so I dedicate all the time it requires,” Acuna told FIFA in 2025. “Yes, it is tough sometimes. We get off one plane and we get on another, but I think we have created a robust culture, one that has order and certainty. We have the advantage of having more than 2.5 million ex-pats in the United States and we have started with Canada, because we know that between Toronto and Montreal, we have a lot of compatriots as well. Don’t think we just find players and then just take them to play with us. We bring them here [to El Salvador] and coach them so they can be prepared for qualifying.”
A similar shift is happening with the women’s national teams of Dominican Republic, and the end result has been a rapid improvement of the senior team, which catapulted up eight spots to 94th in the ranking, their highest in nearly ten years.
The Caribbean side went toe-to-toe with FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023™ side Haiti in the recently concluded first stage of qualifying, holding their neighbours to a 1-1 draw on the final matchday. Just one goal separated Dominican Republic from a first ever berth in the Concacaf W Championship.
Other recent successes include a semi-final finish at the 2020 Concacaf U-20 Women’s Championship, followed by qualifying for the first Concacaf W Gold Cup in 2024, as they edged the likes of Bermuda and Guyana to punch their ticket to the 16-team tournament.
Similar to El Salvador, Dominican Republic have done an impressive job of blending heritage players hailing from Spain and the USA with those born in the country. Embodying that unified spirit was the Dominican Republic U-17 women’s team that played on home soil in the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup 2024™, as a full stadium in Santiago de los Caballeros helped the home team earn a 1-1 draw against New Zealand in the group stage.
“This rise in the rankings reflects the continuous work being done at the grassroots level of women’s football in the country,” said Dominican Republic women’s national team coach Betzaida Ubri to FIFA.
“This improvement is the result of a joint effort between the federation, the coaching staff and the players, who have approached every stage of the process with great commitment. Beyond the ranking, we believe this demonstrates that Dominican women’s football has a clearer playing identity and an exciting future ahead.”
For the women’s teams of Dominican Republic and El Salvador, there is no doubt that the best is yet to come.
Photo credit: Concacaf
