Almost a year away, so why not? Besides, Concacaf's qualifying process started tonight. Five of 16 teams are qualified: Japan (host), France, Germany, Romania, and Spain (UEFA U-21). Meanwhile in Concacaf... Groups A, B and D of the Caribbean qualifiers kicked off. Winner of each group progresses to the play-in round. Group A is in Jamaica and the hosts started off with... a 1-1 tie against Dominica! Guyana withdrew so now Jamaica has to out-do Dominica's result against St. Kitts and Nevis. Group B, the last I could tell it was 3-2 Cuba over USVI but that's not a final score. In Group D, Puerto Rico beat Antigua and Barbuda 2-1 while currently the Dominican Republic tops the group after a 3-1 win over Saint Lucia. Group C doesn't start until next week, when all of the other groups will be over. And Central America's two-legged series also began tonight with: Guatemala v Costa Rica, Nicaragua v Honduras, and Panama v El Salvador
Here is the Jamaica roster for qualifying Here is the members of the 23- player Under 23 Caribbean Men’s Olympic Qualifiers Squad for the first round the Olympic Qualifiers.... Stay tuned for the naming of the U23 squad who will represent Jamaica in the 2019 Pan American Games.#JFFLive#ReggaeBoyz#ReggaeFootball pic.twitter.com/prBUd45SiO— Official J.F.F (@jff_football) July 12, 2019
The other results from last night: Central American Guatemala 0 - Costa Rica 3 Panama 1 - El Salvador 1 Nicaragua 0 - Honduras 2 And it was 3-1 Cuba over the USVI not 3-2. If Cuba beats Barbados tomorrow they qualify for the play-ins because Trinidad and Tobago withdrew so it is only a 3 team group.
Guatemala actually goes into Costa Rica and gets a 2-0 win, but it's not enough to make up for their 3-0 loss at home in the first leg. Los Ticos advance to the final qualifying tournament, and if rumors are to be believed, they will host
Dominican Republic won all three group D games to advance to the play-in round. They will face the Group A winner, either Saint Kitts and Nevis (win or draw) or Jamaica (win). Fun fact: the nickname for the SK&N team is the "Sugar Boyz." Barbados beat Cuba 1-0 and USVI 5-0 to advance out of Group B - they will play the Group C winner and those games don't start until the 24th. El Salvador advances to the Olympic qualifying tournament with a 2-0 win (3-1 on aggregate) over Panama. Honduras brings a 2-0 lead over Nicaragua home tonight.
FEDEFUTBOL(Costa Rica's FA) President Rodolfo Villalobos says the tournament will be in the USA in January or February 2020. http://www.teletica.com/231482_pres...olimpico-de-concacaf-se-realice-en-costa-rica It was scheduled to be in Costa Rica in October but no details had been released. CONCACAF gonna CONCACAF! Jan/Feb means it will be in the southern US obviously....
Honduras won 3-0 to win 5-0 on aggregate to advance. But the BIG news... Jamaica draws 1-1 at home to St. Kitts and Nevis and gets knocked out of the Olympic qualification process at home! The qualification tournament will be: US, Canada, Mexico, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, winner of Dominican Republic vs. St. Kitts and Nevis, and winner of Barbados vs. Haiti/Grenada/Cayman Islands.
Caribbean nations are so schizo as programs. Let's be clear, a full-strength Jamaica blows St. Kitts & Nevis out of the water (Leon Bailey and those cats). Their full national team has called up a bunch of players in this age group this calendar year. That team that embarrassed the US in their pre-Gold Cup friendly featured them. Its another CONCACAF example of parity after one nations top dog(s) are unavailable. This is just like the US as we go without Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Weah, etc. in qualifying The gap between us and the likes of El Salvador then is not as great as we tend to hope/think/believe.
This is bad if true. The ideal scenario would be for at least part of the tournament to be played over the March international dates, which would make it more feasible to get a few Euro-based players.
Plus, domestic guys won't be in midseason shape, though maybe their availability improves somewhat. This would seem to necessitate a long pre-tournament training camp. U.S. Soccer can't be too happy if this is accurate.
Yeah, I was thinking the upside of January qualifying is that at least all of the MLS guys will be available, but they'll be out of shape. I also wonder if we could get some of the guys in Germany during that window, if it falls during their winter break.
Camp cupcake could essentially be a domestic U23 camp in preparation for this tournament. If the timing can work......................... A January/February camp also means similar players for Mexico, Honduras and Costa Rica may not be available. Rigoberto Rivas of Inter Milan and Honduras, for instance. I'll put our depth (if not our elite talents) up against any of the teams in this region. I don't think the US is getting Pulisic, McKennie, Adams, Weah, etc. regardless of when the tournament is. So its kinda of a moot point.
Just watched an old episode of Burn Notice last night and they and to go to the Dominican Republic. A kid was kicking a soccer ball and I thought to myself he should be tossing a baseball. Then I got to wondering if they ever did anything in soccer. Guess occasionally but definitely a baseball country. Could they do a turnaround like Panama some day? May depend on if any player ever makes it big from there as I suspect that would get a lot of kids trying to be the next one after that.
At the moment ~12% of major leagues are Dominican (in terms of opening day 2019 rosters). A crazy percentage when you think about it. Just for comparison, there were 6 Canadians. Not 6 percent. 6 human beings. The DR is so baseball crazy, and the boys specialize completely in baseball at really young ages, that its not surprising that soccer hasn't been so popular or successful. There is actually a comparison to be made about how MLB clubs exploit Dominican youngsters to how big Euro clubs have done the same with soccer players. There are certain protections by FIFA to cut down on abuse, which is not the case with baseball. The promise and peril of the Dominican baseball pipeline https://www.pri.org/stories/2019-03-25/promise-and-peril-dominican-baseball-pipeline
Haiti advances to play Barbados in the play-in as they beat Grenada 2-0 and then tied the Cayman Islands 2-2. Wiki lists the play-ins as August 2nd. Unclear who hosts. Seems like it is just one game. Not sure who hosts.
Central American tabloids reporting the Guadalajara rumour giving UNCAF itself as their source: http://twitter.com/ByDougMcIntyre/status/1156302862311460865 http://www.elgrafico.com/futbol/Preolimpico-sub-23-de-CONCACAF-ya-tiene-fecha-y-sede-20190814-0013.html Tournament would be from March 20th to April 1st. 2 groups of 4. Both those facts imply an identical format to the previous edition, which would give us the following: Group A: Game #1 Friday March 20th Game #2 Sunday March 22nd Game #3 Wednesday March 25th Group B: Game #1 Saturday March 21st Game #2 Monday March 23rd Game #3 Thursday March 26th Semi-Final Sunday March 29th Final Wednesday April 1st Reminder: FIFA window is only from March 23rd to March 31st!
Haiti and the Dominican Republic have qualified for the qualifiers ( ), but winning playoff games this week. North Texas SC's Ronaldo Damus scores for Haiti U23s in Olympic Qualifier https://t.co/WYmOszlvkR #NTXSC #DTID #FCDallas— 3rd Degree (@3rdDegreeNet) September 24, 2019 So the field is set................the usual suspects WITHOUT Jamaica and T&T.
Well now I finally know the answer... St. Kitts and Haiti hosted. Also Haiti hosted, as did St. Kitts. Looks like the St. Kitts vs. Dominican Republic was an exciting game - 0-2 but the goals came in the 97' and 102'.
The CONMEBOL 2020 Pre-Olympic qualifying tournament is underway in Colombia. Top two teams in each group of 5 advance to a semifinal group stage, with the top two in that stage qualifying for the Olympics. Meanwhile, in Asia, they are down to the semifinals in Thailand, with the winners of both, and the winner of the 3rd place match, qualifying for the Olympics. It's Saudi Arabia v. Uzbekistan and Australia v. South Korea. Africa's U-23 Cup of Nations finished with host nation Egypt winning, as well as the Ivory Coast and South Africa qualifying. Looks like no half bids this year so tough luck to the fourth place teams in Africa and Asia, and the third placed-teams in North and South America. (Well there won't be a 3rd place team in Concacaf because since it's pointless there is no consolation game but you get the idea.)
For what it's worth, South Africa's U20s were the only one of those three countries to qualify for the 2017 FIFA finals (97/98s). Senegal and South Africa qualified for 2019 (99/00s). Does this mean anything? I don't know!
I just happened to go over to YouTube looking for something else (that I didn't find, you'll be sorry to hear) and South Korea-Australia was winding down. Looks like South Korea has booked a ticket.