St. John’s Antigua- Antigua & Barbuda’s national football team Benna Boys are preparing for the return leg of their 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifier against USA next week.

Speaking on Good Morning JoJo yesterday, Benna Boys Manager Fernando “Nando” Abraham said the mood in the camp has been upbeat.

“The team will be going into camp from Monday,” Abraham said.

“Tom (Curtis) is back. He’s ready to go with the training, getting set for this big game on the 12th. The mood has been good. We still have a chance to qualify and that is the most important thing.

“Winning that game against US would be the biggest thing for Antigua, and we’ll be setting out with every single possible tools, weapons that we need to go and win that game…”

The manager said that British striker Dexter Blackstock would be available for the match against the United States.

“He had a slight injury … well, the couple of games against Guatemala he was unavailable; but he’s now available. He arrives on Sunday and he’ll be there for the game on Friday.”

Meantime, the Guyana national squad recently decided to shift their qualifier versus Mexico to Houston, Texas, mostly for financial reasons.

However, Abraham said that tourism is vital to Antigua & Barbuda, and the football authorities would prefer to use the opportunity to showcase the country.

“We are very conscious about our football here in Antigua … and we are a tourist country, and we would want every single opportunity to showcase Antigua. So if you’re asking if we would do something like that, I would say absolutely not because we definitely want the US to be here,” the manager said.

“We have a chance. We want to be able to use the twelfth man in the stand to help us win that game so that we could move forward to the next round. This is a historical game. We’ve never (had) a US federation or association team play against Antigua in Antigua.”

Benna Boys play USA on Friday, October 12, and play their final qualifying match of this round four days later against Jamaica at ‘The Office.’