https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_CONCACAF_U-20_Championship has the groups. It has 34 teams, including teams that are not members of FIFA and cannot qualify for the U-20 World Cup. 7 teams did not enter. Teams did not have to qualify. The Group Stage has 4 groups of 6 and 2 groups of 5. All the games will be at Bradenton, Florida, USA. With multiple fields, two games in the same group can be played at the same time. In the groups of 6, the last matchday has 2 games at the same time and 1 game later. In the groups of 5, the last matchday has 2 games at different times. In all groups, the seeded team plays the last game. In all groups, only the winner advances. In Group D, Canada could play their last game and then watch Panama vs. St. Kitts and Nevis. Teams will play 4 or 5 games. The Qualification Stage has 2 groups of 3. Group G has the winners of Groups A, C, and E. Group H has the winners of Groups B, D, and F. The winners of Groups E and F have the last matchday off. If the seeded teams win their groups, Group G will have USA, Honduras, and Costa Rica; while Group H will have Mexico, Panama, and El Salvador. Concacaf gets 4 teams in the U-20 World Cup, and these will be the top 2 in Groups G and H. The winners of Groups G and H will play a Final. In the Group Stage, teams play every other day. I've seen this in groups of 4, but not in groups of 6. Even without having to travel between games, I think playing this often will be tiring. Furthermore, I don't think teams will want to practice that will make players tired for the next day's game, and it limits the amount of preparation that can be done differently for each opponent. It is from November 1 through November 21. Concacaf has U-20 rankings, and here are the seeds based on that: Seeded: USA, Mexico, Honduras, Panama, Costa Rica, and El Salvador Pot 1: Cuba, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Haiti, Canada, and Jamaica Pot 2: Antigua and Barbuda, Bermuda, St. Kitts and Nevis, Curacao, Aruba, and Suriname Pot 3: Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe, St. Lucia, and Guyana Pot 4: St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, Cayman Islands, Barbados, Belize, and Dominica Pot 5: U.S. Virgin Islands, Martinique, Sint Maarten, and St. Martin Did not enter: Anguilla, Bahamas, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, French Guiana, Montserrat (entered and withdrew), and Turks and Caicos Islands
Canada released their roster today. It is fine I guess. 2 guys with Senior Caps and a guy that is a starter on his team in Latvia. A bunch of guys with USL experience and a guy that was playing for Auxerre in France until his transfer to Celtic fell through due to a paperwork error. I'd say our player to watch out for is Jordan Perruzza, a big, strong 17 year old Forward that recently joined TFC from Empoli.
https://www.fifa.com/news/y=2018/m=...-for-expanded-concacaf-u-20-championship.html is titled "Teams gear up for expanded CONCACAF U-20 Championship." How many goals will USA score against U.S. Virgin Islands, who just allowed 13? At senior level, USA's record is 8 goals. They won 8-1 hosting Cayman Islands on November 14, 1993 and 8-0 hosting Barbados on June 15, 2008. USA has allowed double-digits four times, but the last time was over 43 years ago.
Well that is interesting. In the Guyana vs. Cayman Islands game, the Cayman Islands was awarded a penalty late in the first half and their goalkeeper took the kick to make it 1-1.
Full Time: Guyana 2 - 3 Cayman Islands Definitely counts as an upset in my books. The game-winning goal was also a bit of a cracker. From outside the box, hit the crossbar and one of the horizontal bars inside the net by the upright, before flying back out.
The biggest surprise for me at this point. Mexico 2-2 Jamaica. They are now tied on points but Mexico has the advantage in goal differential lesson
I went to concacafgo.com to see the Jamaica-Mexico game. What I saw was a bit alarming for Mexico. Simply put this was a good Jamaican team and Mexico was a bit better and maybe didn't have the same sense of urgency. Even with all that a program like Mexico should be able to do much better. The Jamaicans had much more possession than you would expect and their goals were from build up, not counters. Mexico's chances weren't significantly more and they were a bit lucky to get the tying penalty. Maybe this is Mexico playing too loose but currently they don't look good enough to be champions.
What exactly are the tie break rules to this tournament? On CONCACAF's website, they have an article saying the US only needs a draw with Suriname to reach the final stage, implying that goal difference is the deciding factor, but then two articles below that, they claim that St. Lucia needs to win by 7 goals against Costa Rica to move on. I'm assuming its goal differential but if it is, they really shot themselves in the foot. Both US/Suriname and St.Lucia/Costa Rica would be meaningful games if they used head to head and not who beats the US Virgin Islands by more goals.
According to the regulations tie-breakers are: https://res.cloudinary.com/concacaf...sets/Concacaf_Under-20_Championship_-_ENG.pdf 12.5.1 greatest number of points obtained in all matches 12.5.2 Goal difference in all group matches 12.5.3 Greatest number of goals scored in all group matches If teams are even after that it is head-to-head among tied teams.
So three of four teams qualified for the WC. Mexico, Panama and the US. Honduras has a game against the US. If they don't lose by four or more goals they qualify. If they win they go to the final.
Honduras qualify thanks to only losing by one goal. I didn't like the way the game was played but I suppose that both teams got what they wanted.
The big final is the expected USA vs Mexico. I think I am not being prejudiced in saying that the US looks like the favorite. There has not been one single game were they looked likely to lose and the same cannot be said of Mexico. That said, both teams have zero to lose and can play freely in the final. I hope to see a good game and we will see how the two giants fare against each other.
Concacaf Monday said that it had come to the decision to cancel the 2020 Concacaf U-17 qualifiers and Championship, and the 2020 Concacaf U-20 Championship.