Tag: Canada U17 WNT

U-17 USWYNT: The USA should be in Pot 1 for the draw of the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup

Last weekend, the United States, along with Mexico, Canada, and Costa Rica, all qualified for this year’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup. Those four Concacaf teams joined seven other teams that have already qualified, including the host of this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC, Morocco. Thirteen more slots remain to be filled from three confederations: CAF (Africa), CONMEBOL (South America), and UEFA (Europe).

Assuming that FIFA continues to use the same ranking methodology for this year’s tournament as it has for the past few U-17 WWCs, the USA should have either the fourth-highest or third-highest seeding coefficient, which would put the USA in the first pot of the draw that will determine the groups for this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC. Only one of the 26 teams that are still alive in qualifying, Spain, will have a higher seeding coefficient for the draw than the USA.

The primary advantage of being in Pot 1 is that the USA will not face any of the other Pot 1 teams, such as Korea DPR and Spain, until at least the Round of Sixteen, should the USA advance out of its group. However, the USA could still end up with a difficult group due to the nature of the ranking system and the distribution of teams from each confederation.

Continue reading “U-17 USWYNT: The USA should be in Pot 1 for the draw of the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup”

U-17 USWYNT: Draw Results and Match Schedule for 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers

screenshot of Concacaf's PDF schedule for the Final Round of the 2025 Women's Under-17 Qualifiers

In order to qualify for the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, the USA only needs to top a four-team group that also includes El Salvador, Honduras, and Trinidad & Tobago.

The United States Under-17 Women’s Youth National Team’s shorter qualifying path compared to previous cycles is due to a new qualification format introduced by Concacaf this year. That format now involves a final stage which only consists of three concurrent round-robin groups. In previous cycles, when the FIFA U-17 WWC was held every two years, qualifying included a traditional tournament with a group stage and a knockout stage.

Additionally, with the expansion of the FIFA U-17 WWC from 16 to 24 teams, Concacaf now has an additional slot, so four teams — the top team from each group plus the best overall second-place team — will qualify for the tournament, which will be hosted by Morocco and runs from October 17th to November 8th.

On Monday, February 24th, Concacaf conducted the draw for the Final Round of the 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers.

The full draw results are as follow:

  • Group A: Mexico (host*), Haiti, Costa Rica, Bermuda
  • Group B: Canada, Puerto Rico, Panama (host*), Nicaragua
  • Group C: USA, El Salvador, Honduras, Trinidad & Tobago (host*)

The Final Round’s matches will be played from Monday, March 31st to Sunday, April 6th. Groups “A” and “C” will play its matches on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday, while Group B will play its matches on Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday. Thus, teams will only have one off-day between their first two matches and two off-days between the second and third matches.

The Final Round will be played in three different nations:

  • Group A: Mexico, at the headquarters of the Federación Mexicana de Fútbol in Toluca
  • Group B: Panama, at Estadio Rommel Fernández in Panama City
  • Group C: Trinidad & Tobago, at Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, Trinidad
Continue reading “U-17 USWYNT: Draw Results and Match Schedule for 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers”

DroneGate: Canada Soccer releases findings, Bev Priestman is officially out as WNT head coach, plus new reporting from Radio-Canada

On Tuesday, November 12th, Canada Soccer released a redacted “summary” version of the report of an independent investigation into the drone spying incidents at the 2024 Summer Olympics.

The summary report’s findings are fairly limited, which is positive news for the Canada Women’s National Team. In addition to the 2024 Summer Olympics incidents, the investigation also determined that “surreptitious surveillance” also occurred at two “tournaments” between June 2022 and March 2024 (¶21 to ¶27), but not at the COVID-delayed 2020 Summer Olympics (¶28). However, nowhere in the published report does it directly address the allegation of spying at the Tokyo Olympics that was reported by TSN’s Rick Westhead back in July.

The summary report also stated that the players of the Canada WNT did not watch the footage obtained at the 2024 Summer Olympics, but that is based only on the statement of one person (¶20). Notably, the summary report does not mention whether players of the Canada WNT had seen earlier drone footage, nor does it discuss if any players were aware of the drone spying.

With the release of the summary report, Canada Soccer also confirmed that Bev Priestman is no longer the head coach of the Canada WNT:

The three individuals currently suspended by FIFA will not be returning. The search for a new head coach for the Women’s National Team will commence shortly. 

Additional confidential HR measures are being evaluated and will be taken in response to the findings of the investigation.

The “three individuals” are head coach Bev Priestman, performance analyst Joseph Lombardi (the operator of the drone at the Paris Olympics), and assistant coach Jasmine Mander (who was Lombardi’s direct report).

On Monday, the day before the summary report was released, Radio-Canada, the French-language division of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, published an article based on interviews with about 20 persons, including at least one Canada WNT player: “Details emerge of Canada Soccer’s ‘obsessed’ culture of drone spying”.

Note: All “¶” citations refer to numbered paragraphs in the summary report.

Continue reading “DroneGate: Canada Soccer releases findings, Bev Priestman is officially out as WNT head coach, plus new reporting from Radio-Canada”

Canada: December 2012 Camp Roster – Youth Movement Gets An Early Start

On Tuesday, Canada Soccer released head coach John Herdman’s roster of 27 players for the Canada Women’s National Team’s final camp of 2012* — and first of 2015 Women’s World Cup cycle. The roster contains twelve players born after 1990, including  five from Canada’s most recent Under-20 WNT and four more from its Under-17 WNT, along with three other players born after 1990. Only twelve members of Canada’s Bronze Medal winning Olympic team have been called up, as the players on that team who played overseas or in college were given the camp off. The training camp will last nine days and run from Wednesday, December 12th to the 20th (a Thursday). Its main purposes, according to Herdman will be to “provide baseline testing as well as serve as an identification camp as we launch our new quadrennial cycle in 2013.” Continue reading “Canada: December 2012 Camp Roster – Youth Movement Gets An Early Start”

U-17 WWC: Match Days 3 and 4: USA and Canada Win, Mexico Falls – Plus Advancement Scenarios

Just the score lines, along with summaries of the advancement scenarios for each group going into the final days of group play… Continue reading “U-17 WWC: Match Days 3 and 4: USA and Canada Win, Mexico Falls – Plus Advancement Scenarios”

Under-17 Women’s World Cup – The Draw: And, The Toughest Group Goes To… The USA

On Friday, July 6th, the draw for the 2012 Under-17 Women’s World Cup was held in Baku, Azerbaijan. For the second time this year, a United States Youth Women’s National Team got a difficult group, with the USA being drawn into Group B, along with North Korea, France, and debutante Gambia. In its only previous trip to the U-17 WWC, the USA was also grouped with France, and went on to face North Korea in the title match, falling to the Asian side via an extra time goal.  The four groups were as follows:

Group A: Azerbaijan, Colombia, Nigeria, Canada
Group B: France, USA, North Korea, Gambia
Group C: Mexico, New Zealand, Brazil, Japan
Group D: Uruguay, China, Ghana, Germany Continue reading “Under-17 Women’s World Cup – The Draw: And, The Toughest Group Goes To… The USA”

Under-17 Women’s World Cup: How the Teams Qualified and Quick Thoughts Ahead of the Draw

On Friday, July 6th the draw for the Under-17 Women’s World Cup (U-17 WWC) will be held in Baku, Azerbaijan, at 10:00 am EDT (19:00 local time). (FIFA.com) Once the draw is complete, the sixteen teams that qualified for the tournament, including the United States, Canada, and Mexico, will learn their opening round group opponents.

The bulk of this post reviews how the sixteen teams qualified, with scorelines for all official matches, along with the results of international friendlies, which are useful for cross-confederation comparisons. In addition, there are sections with thoughts on the possible pots and other notes. Continue reading “Under-17 Women’s World Cup: How the Teams Qualified and Quick Thoughts Ahead of the Draw”

U-17 USWNT: A Review of the 2012 CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championship Final

Last weekend, the United States Under-17 Women’s National Team defeated their northern neighbors, Canada, 1:0 in a tight match that saw the USA defense being tested seriously for the first time in the tournament. The USA held onto a 1:0 lead for over 70 minutes, in a staunch defensive effort which was made all the more challenging due to the USA’s inability to maintain possession and to control the match’s tempo. Continue reading “U-17 USWNT: A Review of the 2012 CONCACAF Under-17 Women’s Championship Final”