2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship

2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship
Tournament details
Host country	United States
Dates	4–17 October
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	3 (in 3 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	United States (8th title)
Runners-up	Canada
Third place	Jamaica
Fourth place	Panama
Tournament statistics
Matches played	16
Goals scored	83 (5.19 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Alex Morgan (7 goals)
Best player(s)	Julie Ertz
Best young player	Jody Brown
Best goalkeeper	Yenith Bailey
Fair play award	United States
	← 2014 2022 →

The 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship was the 10th edition of the CONCACAF Women's Championship (also known as the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup or the CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament), the quadrennial international football championship organized by CONCACAF for the women's national teams of the North, Central American and Caribbean region. Eight teams played in the tournament, which took place from 4 to 17 October 2018 in the United States.^[1]^[2]

The tournament served as the CONCACAF qualifiers to the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France. The top three teams qualified for the World Cup, while the fourth-placed team advanced to a play-off against the third-placed team from the South American confederation, CONMEBOL.^[3] It also determined the CONCACAF teams playing at the 2019 Pan American Games women's football tournament in Lima.^[4]

The United States were the defending champions of the competition. They successfully defended their title as hosts, winning the final 2–0 against Canada for their 8th CONCACAF Women's Championship title.^[5]

This was the last CONCACAF tournament branded as the "Women's Championship". In August 2019, CONCACAF announced a rebranding of the competition as the CONCACAF W Championship.^[6]

Qualification

Regional qualification tournaments were held to determine the teams playing in the final tournament.

Qualified teams

The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament. Canada, Mexico, and the United States, as members of the North American Football Union (NAFU), qualified automatically. Two teams from the Central American Football Union (UNCAF) and three teams from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) qualified from their regional qualifying competitions.

Team	Qualification	Appearance	Previous best performance	Previous FIFA Women's World Cup appearances	FIFA ranking at start of event^[7]
North American Zone (NAFU)
Canada	Automatic	9th	Champions (1998, 2010)	6	5
Mexico	Automatic	9th	Runners-up (1998, 2010)	3	24
United States (title holders & hosts)	Automatic	9th	Champions (1991, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2014)	7	1
Costa Rica	Central American winners	7th	Runners-up (2014)	1	34
Panama	Central American runners-up	3rd	Group stage (2002, 2006)	0	66
Jamaica	Caribbean winners	6th	Fourth place (2006)	0	64
Trinidad and Tobago	Caribbean runners-up	10th	Third place (1991)	0	52
Cuba	Caribbean third place	1st	Debut	0	88

Venues

The venues were announced by CONCACAF on 8 April 2018. Sahlen's Stadium and H-E-B Park hosted the group stage matches, while Toyota Stadium hosted the four matches in the knockout stage.^[8]

Cary, North Carolina	Edinburg, Texas	Frisco, Texas
Sahlen's Stadium	H-E-B Park	Toyota Stadium
Capacity: 10,000	Capacity: 9,735	Capacity: 20,500

Draw

The draw for the final tournament was held on 4 September 2018, 10:00 EDT (UTC−4), at the Univision Studios in Miami.^[9]^[10] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. They were seeded into four pots. Pot 1 contained the United States, seeded in Group A, and Canada, seeded in Group B. The remaining six teams were allocated to Pots 2–4 based on the CONCACAF Women's Rankings. The two teams from UNCAF could not be drawn into the same group.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
United States (Position A1) Canada (Position B1)	Mexico Costa Rica	Trinidad and Tobago Jamaica	Panama Cuba

Squads

The provisional 35-player roster (4 must be goalkeepers) for each team was announced by CONCACAF on 10 September 2018.^[11] The final 20-player roster (2 must be goalkeepers) for each team was announced by CONCACAF on 26 September 2018.^[12] After the final 20-player roster was submitted, only injury-related changes would be submitted until 24 hours before each team's first match.^[13]

Group stage

The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw, 0 points for a loss). The rankings of teams in each group are determined as follows (regulations Article 12.12):^[13]

points obtained in all group matches;
goal difference in all group matches;
number of goals scored in all group matches;

If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:

points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned;
goal difference in the group matches between the teams concerned;
number of goals scored in the group matches between the teams concerned;
fair play points in all group matches:
- first yellow card: minus 1 point;
- indirect red card (second yellow card): minus 3 points;
- direct red card: minus 4 points;
- yellow card and direct red card: minus 5 points;
drawing of lots by CONCACAF.

Group A

All times are local, EDT (UTC−4).^[14]

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	United States (H)	3	3	0	18	0	+18	9	Knockout stage
2	Panama	3	2	1	5	5	0	6	Knockout stage
3	Mexico	3	1	2	4	9	−5	3
4	Trinidad and Tobago	3	0	3	1	14	−13	0

Source: CONCACAF
Rules for classification: Group stage tiebreakers
(H) Hosts

4 October 2018