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Update (31-Jan-2020): THIS ARTICLE IS NO LONGER CURRENT FOR THE FOLLOWING REASONS: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