NEW YORK – CONCACAF is turning its World Cup hexagonal rating into an octagonal in reaction to the coronavirus pandemic and is postponing the start of June.
The United States, Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras were farewell to the octagonal, the Confederation of Football Associations of North, Central America and the Caribbean announced Monday.
The other 30 CONCACAF nations will compete for 3 more spots in the final round. The Octagon will be played with 4 team matches in the FIFA double window of foreign matches next June, followed by two in September, October and November 2021, and two in January and March 2022.
By remaining with a large number of groups in the final round, CONCACAF secured two lucrative high-level qualifiers between the United States and Mexico. The format also results in slips, there hasn’t been enough to prevent the U.S. careless 2018 World Cup in Russia when they lost to Mexico and Costa Rica at home and Trinidad and Tobago on the last night.
“It’s smart that we have clarity about the format and time, that we need to chart the way forward,” US coach Gregg Berhalter said in a statement. “We took a look at the challenge of this new World Cup qualifying format.”
The hexagonal began in September and was founded in the June FIFA rankings, in which El Salvador has just overtaken Canada as the sixth team in the region. Non-hexagonal groups would have competed for the right to form CONCACAF in an intercontinental playoff.
FIFA has disposed of the September window for foreign parties due to the pandemic.
Under the new format, newly ranked countries 6-35 will be drawn into six teams out of five in a draw next month, with El Salvador, Canada, Curacao, Panama, Haiti and Trinidad and Tobago with the most sensible seeds. Each organization will participate in a single round-robin tournament of 4 games consistent with the country in October and November.
The winners of the organization will advance to a moment at home and at home, with a general goal next March, and the winners of the moment will move to the octagonal.
The 3 most sensitive octagonal groups qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and the country in fourth places qualifies for intercontinental qualifiers in June 2022.
The first and last semi-lasts of the CONCACAF League of Nations will be rescheduled for a U.S. site. Next March. The United States faces Honduras and Mexico encounters Costa Rica in the semi-lasts, which were originally scheduled to be played on June 4 in Houston. The last scheduled for June 7 in Arlington, Texas.
The 2021 CONCACAF Gold Cup will run from 10 July to 1 August next year. The Gold Cup will probably not feature many of the most sensible players, who will take a leave of absence and then report to the clubs before the 2021-22 European club seasons. The tournament was originally scheduled for July 2-25.
CONCACAF will make paintings to create a Gold Cup initial in the United States before the tournament involving Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, Cuba, French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Montserrat, St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Trinidad and Tobago