Miscellany – Women's Soccer Express

FIFA confirms dates and slot allocation for the 2027 Women’s World Cup

On Tuesday, December 10th, FIFA announced the slot allocation and dates for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup, which will be hosted by Brazil. Although the distribution of slots per confederation, including for the play-off tournament, remains the same, the play-off tournament will have a different format.

The first match of the 2027 WWC will kick off on Thursday, June 24, 2027, with the final being played on Sunday, July 25, 2027.

Concacaf, of which the USA is a member, will have four direct slots plus two play-off spots. The two play-off teams from Concacaf will receive byes for the first phase of the play-off tournament, so they will only have to play a single additional match in order to earn a WWC slot.

CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Subtraction Through Addition

The CONCACAF.com article started out so promising…

Following confirmation from FIFA that Costa Rica and Panama will co-host the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, in August of 2020, and that Concacaf has been awarded one additional slot…

An “additional slot”? Awesome.

But, then came the parenthetical…

(four in total)

Uh, that doesn’t sound good.

And, then, there was the next paragraph, that started:

The Concacaf Council has determined that Costa Rica and Panama, as host countries of the World Cup, will automatically qualify to the World Cup and will no longer participate in the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship.

Wait… A confederation can “determine” whether the host country/countries will automatically qualify or not? Well, that is worth a clarification.

Anyway, moving on for the moment…

The two remaining slots in the World Cup will be determined via the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship.

Well, fu…….n. Yeah, “fun.” That’s the word.

Oh. And, then there’s this bit of news that was slipped in as well:

…the Confederation announced changes to its World Cup Qualifying tournament, to be hosted in the Dominican Republic between Feb 22 – Mar 8, 2020.

Uh, that’s not what was announced back in November…

So, instead of three at-large qualification slots from CONCACAF for the 2020 FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, there are just two available slots, meaning that the semifinals will be must-win all-or-nothing affairs. (Unless CONCACAF or FIFA decides to throw another curveball.)

But, hey, at least there’s another week to prepare for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, since the tournament was pushed back a week, so that it now starts on Saturday, February 22nd instead of the 15th.

But, wait, there’s more… Continue reading “CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Subtraction Through Addition”