2025 U20 World Cup, Chile

[amenina]

Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship Qualifying
Results on 2 March

https://www.concacaf.com/under-20s-men/ ... mpionship/

Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala won Groups A, B and C respectively and qualified for the Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship final tournament.



Qualified for the final tournament in Mexico (12 teams):

Six top ranked teams and given byes: United States (1), Honduras (2), Mexico (3), Panama (4), Costa Rica (5), Dominican Republic (6)

Six winners of the qualifying phase: Cuba (A), El Salvador (B), Guatemala (C), Canada (D), Haiti (E), Jamaica (F)

[Jackson Harrison]

Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship Qualifying
Results on 2 March

https://www.concacaf.com/under-20s-men/ ... mpionship/

Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala won Groups A, B and C respectively and qualified for the Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship final tournament.



Qualified for the final tournament in Mexico (12 teams):

Six top ranked teams and given byes: United States (1), Honduras (2), Mexico (3), Panama (4), Costa Rica (5), Dominican Republic (6)

Six winners of the qualifying phase: Cuba (A), El Salvador (B), Guatemala (C), Canada (D), Haiti (E), Jamaica (F)

Will this use the same format as the W gold cup?

[amenina]

Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship Qualifying
Results on 2 March

https://www.concacaf.com/under-20s-men/ ... mpionship/

Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala won Groups A, B and C respectively and qualified for the Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship final tournament.



Qualified for the final tournament in Mexico (12 teams):

Six top ranked teams and given byes: United States (1), Honduras (2), Mexico (3), Panama (4), Costa Rica (5), Dominican Republic (6)

Six winners of the qualifying phase: Cuba (A), El Salvador (B), Guatemala (C), Canada (D), Haiti (E), Jamaica (F)

Will this use the same format as the W gold cup?

No, according to regulations Articles 12.5-12.12; https://stconcacafwp001.blob.core.windo ... ns-eng.pdf

[Jackson Harrison]

Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship Qualifying
Results on 2 March

https://www.concacaf.com/under-20s-men/ ... mpionship/

Cuba, El Salvador and Guatemala won Groups A, B and C respectively and qualified for the Concacaf Men’s Under-20 Championship final tournament.



Qualified for the final tournament in Mexico (12 teams):

Six top ranked teams and given byes: United States (1), Honduras (2), Mexico (3), Panama (4), Costa Rica (5), Dominican Republic (6)

Six winners of the qualifying phase: Cuba (A), El Salvador (B), Guatemala (C), Canada (D), Haiti (E), Jamaica (F)

Will this use the same format as the W gold cup?

No, according to regulations Articles 12.5-12.12; https://stconcacafwp001.blob.core.windo ... ns-eng.pdf

What's different?

[amenina]

Will this use the same format as the W gold cup?

No, according to regulations Articles 12.5-12.12; https://stconcacafwp001.blob.core.windo ... ns-eng.pdf

What's different?

Teams in the knockout stage are not seeded by their group stage results. The matchups are decided according to the groups and positions of the qualified teams.

[Jackson Harrison]

No, according to regulations Articles 12.5-12.12; https://stconcacafwp001.blob.core.windo ... ns-eng.pdf

What's different?

Teams in the knockout stage are not seeded by their group stage results. The matchups are decided according to the groups and positions of the qualified teams.

Inconsistent.

I meant the actual physical format not pairing system.

Why have one system for one tournament and another for another?

[amenina]

What's different?

Teams in the knockout stage are not seeded by their group stage results. The matchups are decided according to the groups and positions of the qualified teams.

Inconsistent.

I meant the actual physical format not pairing system.

Why have one system for one tournament and another for another?

First of all, I don’t understand your phrase “physical format”. The format of a competition is not a “physical” object that exists in real life.

Second of all, the problem we have with this format is that, the four quarter-final winners will represent CONCACAF in the U20 World Cup. One of the quarter-finals is 1C vs 2A, but if we go by the “seeding” according to the group stage results, 2A could be the runner-up with the best results and thus technically the 4th seed, so it means two of the top four seeds many have to play each other in the quarter-finals and the loser will miss out on the World Cup.

So personally, I would prefer them to just seed the teams 1-8 after the group stage: group winners 1-3, runners-up 4-6, best third place 7-8, and then play 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5 in the quarter-finals. This way they also encourage teams to play well even after they have already qualify for the knockout stage. The downside is that teams may face a team in the quarter-finals which they just played in the group stage, for example we just had Canada vs Costa Rica in the W Gold Cup quarter-finals which just happened in the group stage.

[Jackson Harrison]

Teams in the knockout stage are not seeded by their group stage results. The matchups are decided according to the groups and positions of the qualified teams.

Inconsistent.

I meant the actual physical format not pairing system.

Why have one system for one tournament and another for another?

First of all, I don’t understand your phrase “physical format”. The format of a competition is not a “physical” object that exists in real life.

Second of all, the problem we have with this format is that, the four quarter-final winners will represent CONCACAF in the U20 World Cup. One of the quarter-finals is 1C vs 2A, but if we go by the “seeding” according to the group stage results, 2A could be the runner-up with the best results and thus technically the 4th seed, so it means two of the top four seeds many have to play each other in the quarter-finals and the loser will miss out on the World Cup.

So personally, I would prefer them to just seed the teams 1-8 after the group stage: group winners 1-3, runners-up 4-6, best third place 7-8, and then play 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5 in the quarter-finals. This way they also encourage teams to play well even after they have already qualify for the knockout stage. The downside is that teams may face a team in the quarter-finals which they just played in the group stage, for example we just had Canada vs Costa Rica in the W Gold Cup quarter-finals which just happened in the group stage.

I mean 3 groups of 4 followed by an 8 team KO stage.

The position in group wasn't considered as a criteria for W Gold Cup although it turned out that it ended up 1sts then 2nds then 3rds.

Rematches can happen in semis anyway so in grand scheme of things happening around earlier in quarters isn't an issue for me. OFC do a draw for their youth championship quarters which could be a fairer innovation if you wank to keep teams apart that met in groups.

[amenina]

Inconsistent.

I meant the actual physical format not pairing system.

Why have one system for one tournament and another for another?

First of all, I don’t understand your phrase “physical format”. The format of a competition is not a “physical” object that exists in real life.

Second of all, the problem we have with this format is that, the four quarter-final winners will represent CONCACAF in the U20 World Cup. One of the quarter-finals is 1C vs 2A, but if we go by the “seeding” according to the group stage results, 2A could be the runner-up with the best results and thus technically the 4th seed, so it means two of the top four seeds many have to play each other in the quarter-finals and the loser will miss out on the World Cup.

So personally, I would prefer them to just seed the teams 1-8 after the group stage: group winners 1-3, runners-up 4-6, best third place 7-8, and then play 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, 3 vs 6, 4 vs 5 in the quarter-finals. This way they also encourage teams to play well even after they have already qualify for the knockout stage. The downside is that teams may face a team in the quarter-finals which they just played in the group stage, for example we just had Canada vs Costa Rica in the W Gold Cup quarter-finals which just happened in the group stage.

I mean 3 groups of 4 followed by an 8 team KO stage.

The position in group wasn't considered as a criteria for W Gold Cup although it turned out that it ended up 1sts then 2nds then 3rds.

Rematches can happen in semis anyway so in grand scheme of things happening around earlier in quarters isn't an issue for me. OFC do a draw for their youth championship quarters which could be a fairer innovation if you wank to keep teams apart that met in groups.

Okay, I got what you are saying now. Overall the competition format is the same, 3 groups of four followed by a 8-team KO stage, but the way the KO bracket is structured is different.

I also don't mind rematches in the first KO stage, but some people do not like it, and some coaches prefer not to play a team so soon after they have played them in the group stage.

Personally for a 12-team youth tournament to decide 4 World Cup spots, I prefer 2 groups of 6 teams. After single round-robin (5 matches per team), the group winners qualify directly for the World Cup and play each other in the tournament final, while the other two World Cup spots are decided by play-offs between the second and third-placed teams of the groups, A2 vs B3 and B2 vs A3. This way the group stage matters more and you will at least get two top teams in the World Cup. For the current format of using 4 KO matches to decide the World Cup spots, you can get some really fluke results (by penalties etc.) where the top teams lose there and fail to make the World Cup.

[Sagy]

@amenina total agreement that groups of six and the follow up you suggested are a huge improvement over 3 groups of 4 (and 4 groups of 3, which is much worse).

[amenina]

@amenina total agreement that groups of six and the follow up you suggested are a huge improvement over 3 groups of 4 (and 4 groups of 3, which is much worse).

The format I just mentioned was actually used once in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_CONC ... ampionship

And then in 2017 and 2018, they had a format with two group stages. After the first group stage, six teams advance to the second group stage, divided into two groups of three, and the top two of each group qualify for the World Cup (the top team of each group play in the championship final). But as you say, groups of three don't work.

And then in 2022 (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID), they had this weird format where 16 teams play from the group stage and 12 advance to KO, joined by 4 teams which came from qualifying stage (without playing the group stage). That was the tournament where the Dominican Republic started from the qualifying stage, won three knockout rounds to reach the final and qualified for both the U20 World Cup (where they lost all three matches) and the Paris Olympics (still to be played, but most likely they would get pummeled there).

[Jackson Harrison]

@amenina total agreement that groups of six and the follow up you suggested are a huge improvement over 3 groups of 4 (and 4 groups of 3, which is much worse).

The format I just mentioned was actually used once in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_CONC ... ampionship

And then in 2017 and 2018, they had a format with two group stages. After the first group stage, six teams advance to the second group stage, divided into two groups of three, and the top two of each group qualify for the World Cup (the top team of each group play in the championship final). But as you say, groups of three don't work.

And then in 2022 (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID), they had this weird format where 16 teams play from the group stage and 12 advance to KO, joined by 4 teams which came from qualifying stage (without playing the group stage). That was the tournament where the Dominican Republic started from the qualifying stage, won three knockout rounds to reach the final and qualified for both the U20 World Cup (where they lost all three matches) and the Paris Olympics (still to be played, but most likely they would get pummeled there).

Did you remember they used that format?

[amenina]

@amenina total agreement that groups of six and the follow up you suggested are a huge improvement over 3 groups of 4 (and 4 groups of 3, which is much worse).

The format I just mentioned was actually used once in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_CONC ... ampionship

And then in 2017 and 2018, they had a format with two group stages. After the first group stage, six teams advance to the second group stage, divided into two groups of three, and the top two of each group qualify for the World Cup (the top team of each group play in the championship final). But as you say, groups of three don't work.

And then in 2022 (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID), they had this weird format where 16 teams play from the group stage and 12 advance to KO, joined by 4 teams which came from qualifying stage (without playing the group stage). That was the tournament where the Dominican Republic started from the qualifying stage, won three knockout rounds to reach the final and qualified for both the U20 World Cup (where they lost all three matches) and the Paris Olympics (still to be played, but most likely they would get pummeled there).

Did you remember they used that format?

Not consciously, but it must have been in the "back of my mind" when I wrote it. And then i thought, "Didn't CONCACAF already used that before?" So I checked wikipedia, and yes, they have already used it once before. CONCACAF have used so many formats for their youth tournament, I have lost tracked of them.

[Jackson Harrison]

The format I just mentioned was actually used once in 2015: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015_CONC ... ampionship

And then in 2017 and 2018, they had a format with two group stages. After the first group stage, six teams advance to the second group stage, divided into two groups of three, and the top two of each group qualify for the World Cup (the top team of each group play in the championship final). But as you say, groups of three don't work.

And then in 2022 (no tournament in 2020 due to COVID), they had this weird format where 16 teams play from the group stage and 12 advance to KO, joined by 4 teams which came from qualifying stage (without playing the group stage). That was the tournament where the Dominican Republic started from the qualifying stage, won three knockout rounds to reach the final and qualified for both the U20 World Cup (where they lost all three matches) and the Paris Olympics (still to be played, but most likely they would get pummeled there).

Did you remember they used that format?

Not consciously, but it must have been in the "back of my mind" when I wrote it. And then i thought, "Didn't CONCACAF already used that before?" So I checked wikipedia, and yes, they have already used it once before. CONCACAF have used so many formats for their youth tournament, I have lost tracked of them.

Too complex and inconsistent.

Is this same for U17?

I've emailed for comment on KO bracket.

[amenina]

Did you remember they used that format?

Not consciously, but it must have been in the "back of my mind" when I wrote it. And then i thought, "Didn't CONCACAF already used that before?" So I checked wikipedia, and yes, they have already used it once before. CONCACAF have used so many formats for their youth tournament, I have lost tracked of them.

Too complex and inconsistent.

Is this same for U17?

I've emailed for comment on KO bracket.

No matter what format they were using, it was always the same format for men's U-20 and U-17.

Women's youth tournaments may have different formats because the number of teams playing is lower. For example, currently there are 12 teams in men's U-20 and U-17 final tournaments, but only 8 teams in women's U-20 and U-17 final tournaments.