Photo by ISIPhotos.com
By DAN KARELL
The U.S. Women’s National Team now know who they’ll be facing in the group stage of the 2014 CONCACAF Women’s Championship.
CONCACAF conducted the tournament’s draw on Friday morning, placing the USWNT in Group A with Trinidad and Tobago, Guatemala, and Haiti, while Mexico was placed in Group B with Costa Rica, Jamaica, and Martinique.
The U.S. will kick off the tournament at Sporting Park in Kansas City, Kan., against Trinidad and Tobago on Oct. 15, and then head to Chicago to face Guatemala two days later. Jill Ellis’ side will finish out the group stage on Oct. 20 in Washington D.C. with a match against Haiti.
“An opponent at this point is an opponent standing between us and the World Cup,” U.S. head coach Jill Ellis said in a press release. “We will prepare for every team with the same respect, resolve and planning while making sure our focus is on our performance. We will approach every game with the intent of maximizing our points and getting to the semifinal.”
The top two teams from each group will move into the semifinals of the tournament, which takes place from Oct. 15-26. The winners of the semifinals and the third-place game will qualify for the 2015 Women’s World Cup. The final rounds of the tournament will all be hosted at PPL Park in Chester, Pa.
Martinique, due to not being an official FIFA member, are ineligible for the semifinals. As such, if they finish in first or second place in their group, the third-place team will advance instead.
Per the U.S. Soccer press release, all matches during the tournament will be televised by FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2, FOX Soccer Plus, as well as “on multi-platform devices via FOX Sports GO, FOX Soccer 2GO and FOXSportsGO.com.”
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What do you think of this news? Do you expect the U.S. to run the table in their group? Who would you like to see called in for the tournament?
Share your thoughts below.
Minnowlandia
“We will prepare for every team with the same respect, resolve and planning…” translation: we’d send our C team but our B team needs some minutes.
Sydney…
+1
I’m not going to watch this because if he USA qalifies (which is 99.99999% likely) it will be boring to watch and if they don’t then I don’t want to replace my TV after all the stuff I throw at the screen.
If the U.S. doesn’t have a +20 goal differential coming out of this group, something is wrong.
Germany has something like a +50 goal differential in the euro qualifiers. After eight games. Whoa.
So they play on a Wednesday, Friday and Monday. Do they not want people coming out for these games? Also, sure hope everybody’s squads are deep – 3 games in 6 days and you still have the big games coming in the next 4 days… apparently the scheduler “Field-Turfed” them as well.
The other games are played on a Thursday, Saturday and Tuesday. It’s always tough to get attendance for weekday games, though the US will certainly draw pretty well and is why they are bouncing to 3 locales just for group play.
When you have poor countries playing in a tournament, every day costs money. I know T&T is already out begging for contributions (and that’s with a coach that isn’t getting paid).
High school players do 3 games every other week and 2 games on the weeks inbetween
High school (usually) has re-entry permissions.
Also the compressed high school and college match schedule is often cited as a problem of our youth setup.
My niece’s high school team played Tuesday and Thursday this week, and they have games scheduled tomorrow, Monday, Wednesday and Thursday. Six games in ten days. Ridiculous.
Any reason they don’t call it the gold cup?
or the men’s tournament the 2015 CONCACAF Championship.. either are ok
Buncha sexists, obviously.