The CONCACAF U-20 Championship is ongoing right now, with the knockout rounds starting this weekend. US emerged from their group as the top dog, which included 🇰🇳 St. Kitts and Nevis (10-0 win), 🇨🇦 Canada (2-2 draw), and 🇨🇺 Cuba (3-0 win).
Tomorrow evening they’ll play 🇳🇮 Nicaragua in the round of 16.
As I’ve been chatting with friends and family about the tournament, a series of questions have come up. Some that I had no answers for, others that I had answers but no rationale for. So I’ve done a little digging and compiled a rabbit hole of FAQ’s that came up in conversations, along with some interesting learnings. As you’ll see, this under-the-radar U-20 tournament has a wild web of complex interconnections and implications across the world of FIFA internal soccer. Let’s take a look! 👀
CONCACAF U-20 Championship Rabbit-hole of FAQs 🕵️♂️
- To start, what is CONCACAF?
- CONCACAF is a collection of teams across North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The name is the abbreviation of Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football.. which is a bit of a mouthful, to say the least. 😅
- In total there are 6 different regional federations like this across the world. Basically a way for FIFA to divide up governing bodies geographically. It also allows the regions to hold various tournaments without travel ✈️ getting too out of control.
| FIFA Confederation | Region |
|---|---|
| AFC Asian Football Confederation | Asia |
| CAF Confederation of African Football | Africa |
| CONCACAF Confederation of North, Central America, and Caribbean Association Football | North, Central America, Carribbean |
| CONMEBOL South American Football Confederation | South America |
| UEFA Union of European Football Associations | Europe |
| OFC Oceania Football Confederation | Oceania |
- What are the implications of this year’s U-20 CONCACAF tournament?
- As is the case in the regional tournaments for the Senior teams as well, there are often multiple implications for top performers in the tournament. Not only do the winners claim that year’s trophies, but multiple top teams may also qualify for other upcoming major tournaments. This year, there are two major implications:
- Top 4 teams qualify for the 2023 U-20 World Cup, which will be hosted by 🇮🇩 Indonesia in 2023
- Top 2 teams also qualify for the 2024 Olympic Games to be hosted in 🇫🇷 Paris
- As is the case in the regional tournaments for the Senior teams as well, there are often multiple implications for top performers in the tournament. Not only do the winners claim that year’s trophies, but multiple top teams may also qualify for other upcoming major tournaments. This year, there are two major implications:
- There’s a U-20 World Cup?
- Yup! There is also a U-17 World Cup
- As a side note, there are US youth teams from U-15 all the way up. And yes, promising younger players can get called up to play for older teams – including the Senior team – and then drop back down to their own age group from time to time.
- There’s a U-20 Olympics?
- No. This is where things get a little wonky. The top 2 teams in this years CONCACAF qualify for the actual Olympic Games!
- The Olympics would actually be played by our U-23 team… 😳
- Our senior team doesn’t play in the Olympics!?
- Olympic soccer has an age limit of 23. Therefore, if US qualifies, it’s our U-23 team that would play, not our Senior team.
- The age limit is predominantly influenced by FIFA, as a way to keep their monopoly 🎩 on the World Cup being the standalone, premier international tournament. This age limit was first introduced in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
- Why is the age limit 23 for the Olympics?
- This stems from the fact that the UEFA qualifying tournament is amongst their U-21 teams, and they are typically held ~2 years prior to the Olympics. That means that qualifying teams would have players aged 23 by time the Olympics roll around.
- How did US U-20 fare in recent CONCACAF Championships?
- US is actually the reigning back-to-back champs 🏆🏆 from the 2017 and 2018 games. In 2020 they were canceled due to Covid, so this is our first chance to run it back for the 3-peat.
So there you have it. The U-20 CONCACAF Championships, aka 2023 U-20 World Cup qualifier, aka 2024 (U-23) Olympic Games Qualifier!
Be sure to tune in tomorrow, Saturday, June 25 @ 8:30pm ET for 🇺🇸 USA vs 🇳🇮 Nicaragua. Winner advances to the quarterfinals early next week. You can catch the games streaming live on Concacaf’s Youtube channel.
As a teaser, here are the highlights from the previous match against Cuba: