AUDLEY BOYD, ASSISTANT Editor - Sports

Jamaica's Reggae Boyz will begin their quest for a place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Finals in Russia, with a first-leg football match against Nicaragua at the National Stadium tonight, beginning at 8 p.m.

The contest is crucial to either country's chances of playing in the prestigious tournament, as is the return match in Managua next week Tuesday.

In this light, the pressure will be on Jamaica to push for a clear advantage at home.

Aggregated scores will decide the winner of the series, giving one of the teams a hard pill to swallow.

Simple equation: win equals advance; loss means elimination.

Coach Winfried Schäfer used basically the same core of players throughout the recent CONCACAF Gold Cup and the team actually got better and better, fuelling expectations of a handsome win against Nicaragua, which is somewhat of an unknown quantity, but from Central America where the players' techniques and standards are quite good.

"It's more important than the Gold Cup," said the Jamaica coach. "It's the first qualification for the World Cup group. All the players are highly motivated. We need a full stadium behind us, it's important."

Nicaragua's Football Association president, Jose Jacinto Reyes, said they are young, but full of heart and desire victory.

"Even though it's a young team, we are playing with our hearts, and even though we have a young team, we are here to win. And we pray to God that we can win, otherwise we will still give them a great challenge," Reyes said.

Jamaica will be looking to boot away such margins of error in their quest to comfortably ride this Nicaraguan challenge in their kick-off for Russia 2018.