CONCACAF President Victor Montagliani described the region’s new format as benefits for all member countries in light of the chaos caused by the World Cup qualifying calendar due to the coronavirus pandemic.
With the pandemic that effectively ended international football, several days of matches have been lost and some teams have not had a chance to improve their rankings. The governing body was therefore forced to present a new format for the Concacaf qualifications for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup.
The new format comprises three rounds and offers all participating associations the opportunity to compete for the three and a half places of the Confederation World Cup.
The first round will be played between the Concacaf Member Associations ranked 6-35 based on the FIFA rankings as of July 16, 2020.
The 30 men’s national teams will be divided into six groups of five in a seeded draw. The six most popular teams, El Salvador, Canada, Curacao, Panama, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago will be pre-sown in groups A to F respectively.
Teams will play every other team in their group once, playing a total of four games; two at home and two at a distance. At the end of the round, the six group winners will move on to the second round.
The second round will be played among the winners of the first round group, with the pre-determined matches as follows:
Group A winner vs group F winner, group B winner vs group E winner, group C winner vs group D winner.
The teams will play at home and away in a knockout format. The three winners will move on to the final stage. The final round of the Concacaf qualifiers for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup will see the three second round winners joining the Concacaf Member Associations ranked 1-5 based on the FIFA rankings as of 16 July 2020. The national teams ranked 1-5 had already earned. enough FIFA ranking points to guarantee their place in the final stage before developing a new format.
The final round teams are Mexico USA, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras. At the end of the final round, the top three final teams will directly qualify for the Qatar 2022 FIFA World Cup. The team in fourth place will qualify for the FIFA Intercontinental Playoff.
“Everyone’s world changed in mid-March with the pandemic. Then we lost the March windows, the June windows and now the September windows, so a lot of things were taken into consideration, “Montagliani told SportsMax Zone in an interview Tuesday.
“It’s not just about qualifying for the World Cup. We had to look at the whole male calendar. We had to look into the qualifications for the Gold Cup which are still ongoing. We had to take a look at the four Nation’s League finals, which have not yet been completed and we also had to look at Nation’s League 2.0, which had been set for ’21 but which will now be played in ’22, “he added.
“We looked at the number of games that needed to be played and the old format, which was not able to be completed completely because not everyone was able to complete their ranking requirements.”
The president explained that looking at the format economy okay, with all the games reduced in a short period of time, could prove to be an additional burden.
“I think it has something for everyone and I’m happy and proud enough of our group to come together in a difficult time and find an excellent solution.”
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