Tag: CONCACAF U20 (Women’s)

CU20W: USA Viewing Options for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship

Update (22-Feb-2020):  Major re-write, added section for YouTube

While all of this year’s CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship matches that involve the USA should be available unblocked via CONCACAF’s official YouTube channel, some live broadcasts of other matches have been geo-blocked in the USA.

For those trying to watch these other matches live, there are two additional options:  Concacaf Go (go.concacaf.com) and TUDNxtra.  And, if you missed a match, each match should be available for replay on YouTube (official playlist) shortly after the end of the live broadcast.

The Options:

Continue reading “CU20W: USA Viewing Options for the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship”

2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship – Final Rosters

Earlier this week, CONCACAF released the final rosters for this year’s Women’s Under-20 Championship.  Unfortunately, the rosters were only made publicly available via Issuu.com which does not allow downloads of the original PDF for documents uploaded by free accounts (and generally sucks from a usability perspective.)

Anyway, here is the full list of players as a Google Sheets file.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1oOmw582dDE6XBMtWswTQZBHCFdv7jYNYmAtLPPkhBbU/edit

Continue reading “2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship – Final Rosters”

U-20 Neighbor Watch: Guess Who’s Not on Canada’s Roster For the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship

Update (04-Mar-2020):  Sonia Walk is a Boston College commit for 2020. (Twitter)

Here’s a hint:  All three age-eligible players have a total of 61 senior caps for Canada.

Here’s another hint:  All three players were on Canada’s roster for the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup.

Continue reading “U-20 Neighbor Watch: Guess Who’s Not on Canada’s Roster For the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship”

U-20 Neighbor Watch: Mexico Announces Squad For 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship

While Mexico’s squad for this year’s CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship is younger, on average, then the United States’ roster, they are not inexperienced.  Nine players from the team that finished second at the 2018 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup are on this roster, including Canadian-born Silvana Flores, who plays for Arsenal FC’s Under-21 team.

In addition, the coach of that history-making squad, retired Mexican international Mónica Vergara, now leads this team.  Vergara, who was Mexico’s youngest player at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, was also a member of Mexico’s squad at the 2004 Olympics and their Under-19 team at the 2002 FIFA Under-19 Women’s World Championship.

With Mexico is in Group D and the United States in Group C, a potential knockout round match-up could not happen until… the final. Continue reading “U-20 Neighbor Watch: Mexico Announces Squad For 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship”

U-20 USWNT: Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship Announced

Prologue:  This has not been a normal U-20 cycle.

* * *

With Laura Harvey taking the helm of the Under-20 United States Women’s National Team, some change in player selection was to be expected, but… Continue reading “U-20 USWNT: Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship Announced”

U-20 USWNT: Provisional Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Championship Released

On Monday, February 3rd, CONCACAF released the provisional rosters (PDF) for all teams participating in the final stages of the 2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, giving us clues as to which players are still in the mix for new head coach Laura Harvey’s final 20-player roster, including #1 NWSL College Draft pick Sophia Smith.

The tournament, which will be hosted by the Dominican Republic and runs from February 22nd to March 8th (full schedule), will be used to decide the two – yes, just 2 – at-large qualification slots from CONCACAF for this year’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica and Panama.

Continue reading “U-20 USWNT: Provisional Roster for 2020 CONCACAF Championship Released”

CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Costa Rica and Panama Out, Bermuda and Barbados In

Oh, and there’s a schedule change, too.

So, it seems that CONCACAF has quietly pushed back the start of this year’s CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship a week, so that the tournament now starts on February 22nd, instead of February 15th.

That detail went unhighlighted in a January 13th article posted on CONCACAF.com, titled “Concacaf Announces Changes to the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Under-20 Championship,” which confirmed that the co-hosts of this year’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, Costa Rica and Panama, would both have automatic bids, and, alas, that only two at-large qualifications slots would be available for the rest of CONCACAF. Continue reading “CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Costa Rica and Panama Out, Bermuda and Barbados In”

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”

2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Host, Dates, and Knock-Out Bracket Confirmed

See CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Costa Rica and Panama Out, Bermuda and Barbados In for current schedule and bracket details.

Update (31-Jan-2020):  THIS ARTICLE IS NO LONGER CURRENT FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS:  

  • THE DATES FOR THIS TOURNAMENT HAVE BEEN CHANGED.  (They are now February 22nd to March 8th).
  • COSTA RICA AND PANAMA ARE NOT PARTICIPATING IN THIS TOURNAMENT.  THEIR GROUPS AND THE KNOCK-OUT BRACKET HAVE BEEN ALTERED.

Update (20-Dec-2019):  FIFA has confirmed that Costa Rica and Panama will be joint hosts for this cycle’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup, which will be held in August 2020 (FIFA.com). Not yet confirmed is how this will affect qualifying in CONCACAF.  Absent exceptional circumstances, the most likely result is that the number of open qualification slots will be reduced to 2, as Costa Rica and Panama will be given the host slot plus 1 slot from CONCACAF’s allocation.  Another uncertain wrinkle is whether Costa Rica and Panama will be participating in this CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, as they are currently assigned to Group D (with Mexico) and Group F (with Haiti), respectively.  Given the timing of this announcement, right before the end-of-the-year holiday break, it is possible that these qualifying matters may not be resolved until January 2020.

On Tuesday, CONCACAF confirmed that the Dominican Republic will be hosting the confederation’s final qualifying tournament for next year’s FIFA Under-20 Women’s World Cup. (CONCACAF.com)  As things currently stand, CONCACAF has three open qualifying slots, though that could change depending on who actually ends up hosting the U-20 WWC in 2020.

The qualifying tournament, which is officially known as the CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship, is scheduled for February 15, 2020 to March 1, 2020, and in a departure from past tournaments, will feature twenty teams instead of the usual eight.  The tournament will have a Group Stage involving the top sixteen U-20 women’s national teams, based on historical rankings (CONCACAF.com).  Those sixteen teams will be divided into four standard round-robin groups of four.  The top three teams in each group will advance to the knock-out stage.

The knock-out stage will start with a Round of Sixteen that includes the twelve advancing teams from the Group Stage, plus four teams from a preliminary qualifying stage for teams outside the top sixteen.  (Wikipedia has a decent summary article on the preliminary qualifying stage.)  After the Round of Sixteen, the knockout round will proceed normally, with a Final to determine the champion and a Third Place match.
Continue reading “2020 CONCACAF Women’s Under-20 Championship: Host, Dates, and Knock-Out Bracket Confirmed”

U-20 USWNT: A Statistical Comparison to Past Cycles (Part 1)

The main inspiration for this post was a quote by German U-20 WNT head coach Maren Meinert on FIFA.com, from earlier this month:

Who are favourites to win?
We’re one of the favourites. As hosts, Japan are up there, as well as Brazil and USA, who have a very good U-20 team this year. In my opinion it’s one of the best USA U-20 teams I’ve ever seen.

Maybe Meinert is just being nice because she would like to be the USWNT’s head coach someday, or maybe she is trying to prop up her team’s case for being one of the seeded teams…

…But, in any case, at least by a few metrics, the facts back up her opinion. Continue reading “U-20 USWNT: A Statistical Comparison to Past Cycles (Part 1)”