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United States to host 2024 Copa America, will feature six CONCACAF teams

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The 2024 Copa America tournament will return to the United States as part of a new collaboration agreement between CONEMBOL and Concacaf on Friday.

For the first time since 2016, the Copa America will return to the United States, featuring all 10 CONMEBOL national teams, as well as the top-six ranked Concacaf nations. The six Concacaf national teams will have the opportunity to qualify for this competition through the 2023-24 Concacaf Nations League.

The tournament will run from June 20 to July 14 in the United States.

“It’s massive for us,” said USMNT defender Walker Zimmerman during Friday’s pre-match press conference. “After Qatar ended, we were, all of us, looking at the schedule going, okay, what are our pictures going to look like over the next three and a half years? We knew we had to play in big games. We had to play in big tournaments. And so the opportunity to have Copa América here in the United States, play against some of the best from Conmebol, I mean, it’s huge for us.”

The Copa America will also serve as a strong preparation tool for both CONMEBOL and Concacaf ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which will be hosted in the United States, Mexico, and Canada.

“This is a partnership to support the ongoing growth of men’s and women’s football in Concacaf and CONMEBOL, and will truly be of mutual benefit to both Confederations,” Victor Montagliani, president of Concacaf said. “Working hand in hand with CONMEBOL, we will deliver elite competitions that will provide more opportunities for our federations, and that we know passionate fans want to see. We look forward to working together to ensure that football in both regions continues to thrive.”

In addition to the Copa America news, Concacaf has invited the top four CONMEBOL national teams to participate in the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup. The inaugural edition of this 12-team tournament, will also be played in the United States.

The two Concacaf teams that will participate in the 2024 Summer Olympics (United States and Jamaica or Canada) will qualify directly for the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup. The remaining six Concacaf teams will be determined through the 2023 Road to Concacaf W Gold Cup.

Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, and Paraguay have already qualified for the 2024 Concacaf W Gold Cup, based on the results of the 2022 Women’s Copa America tournament.

CONMEBOL and Concacaf will also organize a centralized “final four” style club competition featuring the best clubs from the respective confederations. The four participating teams (two from each confederation) will qualify through existing CONMEBOL and Concacaf club competitions. The predicted start date for this competition is slated for 2024.

“CONMEBOL and Concacaf are united by historical and affective ties,” said CONMEBOL president Alejandro Dominguez. “But above all, we are united by the passion, characteristic of all the Americas, for football and sports. We are determined to renew and expand our joint initiatives and projects. We want this passion to translate into more and better competitions and for football and its values to grow and strengthen throughout the hemisphere. Without a doubt, both confederations believe in big, and we will work with this orientation.”

Comments

  1. Very good news all around:
    – With no WCQ and NL providing substandard competition, the Copa will definitely ready the team for WC 2026
    – In the midst of new players getting minutes in the January cap, we may see new talent from that pool as well as across the pond make an impact by the summer of 2024.
    – When the US hosted the WC in 1994, while being a huge success attendance-wide, was a daunting experience for the USSF. Hosting WC 2026 with 48 teams across 3 countries will be a much larger and more complex undertaking. A dress rehearsal in 2024 is most welcome.
    – The wording of the announcement implies more joint tournaments going forward, a positive step for both confederations.

    Reply
    • I’m genuinely excited about it. Far more than I was even about the Copa America Centenario. We were just “happy to be there”, and while we gave Colombia a good game and beat Paraguay and Ecuador, Argentina ran us over and the gulf in quality was gaping. I’m hoping we can be far more competitive this time.

      If we can get this event to regular status, we’ll finally have something equivalent to the Euros, and we’ll have a means of getting far better meaningful games in between cycles.

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      • “We were just “happy to be there”, and while we gave Colombia a good game and beat Paraguay and Ecuador, Argentina ran us over and the gulf in quality was gaping. I’m hoping we can be far more competitive this time.”

        Argentina did beat us up good but I never understood why people thought that was such a bad defeat. That team was capable of doing that to a lot of teams . In the Group stage they beat up Panama and Bolivia by a combined scored of 8-0.

        And that was not a great USMNT lineup. No Jermaine Jones.

        And tell you what, depending on who shows up and how they are, the gulf in quality between the USMNT and Argentina might still be just as wide in 2024. And if Gregg is still in charge then, the managing gulf certainly will be.

  2. you’re getting your years and conflicts confused. as i understand it NL finals were vaguely set for this june 2023, not 2024. ergo the seeming conflict would be 23 NL/ GC — again — with 24 CA in its own summer. that being said, GC sounds a lot more like it is really happening — a definite date range, invited guest, final site — while NL finals haven’t really been nailed down. the leagues have been made qualifying for gold cup and copa america, but akin to concacaf youth qualifying, that doesn’t mean the actual final has to be played or matter. i will be curious.

    i know some snobs thought this was deeply needed — games that count — but ES and grenada? cuba? they made the groups too small which results in too few fixtures and not enough competition. if you get canada, wow, if not, meh. if they went to like 6 team groups then it would be better.

    personally i see NL finals and GC as redundant unless they bring back some sort of global final. far as i am concerned i’d be fine with NL — emphasis on “league” — as qualifying for GC. but i don’t think the redundancy is that awful — wouldn’t be even if it was the same summer as CA. you just split A and B teams and trial people in the B games. i thought the split proved useful in 21 as zardes’ sputtering as GC progressed finally forced transition at 9.

    all this being said, i think the far bigger problem is if we don’t have a coach and then have to fulfill 2 tournaments. that is too much of the cycle, too big a waste of a summerlong camp. that’s the real shame is if we have 2 months to look at players and play games, and hudson gets handed that. bradley and sarachan had their own resumes when they got handed the team for a while. personally i think we should either have the coach picked or have some caretaker who is good and gets some value out of the experience, tries some new tactics, selects players with a clue, can manage a game to a result. far more worried about wasting most of a year than whether we have more soccer to play and watch.

    Reply
    • meant as a response to 2tone. and fwiw i wish we didn’t host everything. i think it would do us some good to have to play a tournament on the road, deal with adversity. i know we’re hosting but we need to be prepared to handle a game not going how we hoped.

      Reply
      • No there is nations league in 2023-2024 as well. It’s actually supposed to be every two years with finals on the even years.

    • It does make sense in Europe when your 3 team group might be Croatia, Denmark, and France. Doesn’t make sense in shallow Concacaf. I think 6 team group would be too big, 10 matches would take up a whole year of windows. Concacaf doesn’t really care that it doesn’t help the heavyweights their trying to lift up the Grenada and El Salvador’s.

      Reply
  3. Hmmm.., so when is the finals for the Concacaf nations league going to be in 2024? Better not be that summer, better be in the spring FIFA window.

    But very excited about this. It also sounds like COnMEBOL and CONCACAF want this tournament to continue into the future. Also excited bout a joint club competition between the two confederations even if it only starts out with like the best 4 teams in North America v the best 4 teams against South America. That’s a start to something bigger in the future.

    Reply

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