Concacaf WU17 Qualifiers – Women's Soccer Express

U-17 USWYNT: Roster for 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers announced — includes two NWSL pros

Update (28-Mar-2025): Defender Izzy Dalke and forward Elayna Kocher suffered injuries (back and knee, respectively) during the preparatory camp in Florida and have been replaced by defender Gracie Milam and forward Audrey McKeen. (U.S. Soccer press release)

For its qualifiers to the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup, the Under-17 United States Women’s Youth National Team will have all five age-eligible players from its squad for the previous U-17 WWC, including two professionals and goalkeeper Evan O’Steen who won the Golden Glove at that tournament.

The two professionals, who both now play in the National Women’s Soccer League, are midfielder Kimmi Ascanio of the San Diego Wave and forward Micayla Johnson of the Chicago Stars. The other two returning players are both midfielders: Jaiden Rodriguez, who is set to play collegiate soccer for Southern California later this year, and Scottie Antonucci, whose post-secondary plans remain officially enigmatic.

In addition to O’Steen, who will be playing for Florida State, and Rodriguez, four other players have reclassified and will begin their NCAA careers in 2025: Forward Ashlyn Anderson at Florida State, midfielder Riley Kennedy at the University of North Carolina, defender Cecil Pearl at Virginia, and forward Nyanya Touray at Florida State.

The USA’s qualifying path for this year’s FIFA U-17 WWC involves just three round-robin group matches, which will be played over six days from Monday, March 31, to Saturday, April 5. The USA’s opponents are Trinidad & Tobago, Honduras, and El Salvador.

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

2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers: Costa Rica and Puerto Rico among eight teams that advance to the final round

With the first round of the 2025 Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Qualifiers in the books, the names of all 12 teams that will face off in the final round are now known.

Joining the four teams that received byes to the final round — the USA, Mexico, Canada, and Haiti — are six group winners: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, and Puerto Rico.

Two second-place teams, Bermuda and Trinidad & Tobago, also advanced (Concacaf news item). The six groups were unbalanced, with two groups having just three teams instead of four, so a weighted points system (points divided by matches played) was apparently used (the regulations document is silent on this matter, but it has been used in the past). However, due to a quirk in that ranking system, one or both of those teams may have advanced more on the luck of the draw rather than on sporting factors.

For the final round, which is scheduled to start on Monday, March 31st, the above 12 teams will be divided into three round-robin groups of four. The top team from each group, along with the best second-place team from among those three groups, will advance to the 2025 FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup.