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 Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

championship organized by

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football,, ; french: Confédération de football d'Amérique du Nord, d'Amérique centrale et des Caraïbes, . Dutch uses the English name. abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; types ...

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. The tournament served as the CONCACAF qualifiers to the

2019 FIFA Women's World Cup The 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup was the eighth edition of the FIFA Women's World Cup, the quadrennial international Women's association football championship contested by 24 women's national teams representing member associations of FIFA. It ...

in France. The top three teams qualified for the World Cup, while the fourth-placed team advanced to a

play-off The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eithe ...

against the third-placed team from the South American confederation,

CONMEBOL The South American Football Confederation (CONMEBOL, , or CSF; es, Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol; pt, Confederação Sul-Americana de Futebol) is the continental governing body of football in South America (apart from Guyana, Suri ...

. It also determined the CONCACAF teams playing at the 2019 Pan American Games women's football tournament in Lima. The

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

were the defending champions of the competition. They successfully defended their title as hosts, winning the final 2–0 against

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

for their 8th CONCACAF Women's Championship title. 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 The CONCACAF W Championship (previously known as the CONCACAF Women's Championship, CONCACAF Women's Invitational Tournament, CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup and CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying) is a football competition organized by the Confede ...

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 The North American Football Union (NAFU; french: Union Nord-Américaine de Football; es, Unión Norteamericana de Fútbol) is a regional grouping under CONCACAF of national football organizations in the ''North American Zone''. The NAFU has no o ...

(NAFU), qualified automatically. Two teams from the

Central American Football Union The Unión Centroamericana de Fútbol (Central American Football Union), more commonly known by the acronym UNCAF, represents the national football teams of Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Pa ...

(UNCAF) and three teams from the

Caribbean Football Union The Caribbean Football Union (CFU) is the representative organization for football associations in the Caribbean. It represents 25 FIFA member nations, as well as 6 territories that are not affiliated to FIFA. The Union was established in Januar ...

(CFU) qualified from their regional qualifying competitions.

Venues

The venues were announced by CONCACAF on 8 April 2018. Sahlen's Stadium and

H-E-B Park H-E-B Park is a soccer-specific stadium in Edinburg, Texas. It serves as the home of Rio Grande Valley FC Toros of the USL Championship, the second level of the US/Canadian professional soccer pyramid. Rio Grande Valley Football Club is affiliate ...

hosted the group stage matches, while Toyota Stadium hosted the four matches in the knockout stage.

Draw

The draw for the final tournament was held on 4 September 2018, 10:00 EDT ( UTC−4), at the Univision Studios in

Miami Miami ( ), officially the City of Miami, known as "the 305", "The Magic City", and "Gateway to the Americas", is a East Coast of the United States, coastal metropolis and the County seat, county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade C ...

. The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. They were seeded into four pots. Pot 1 contained the

, seeded in Group A, and

, 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.

Squads

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

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

Group A

All times are local, EDT ( UTC−4). ---- ----

Group B

All times are local, CDT ( UTC−5). ---- ----

Knockout stage

In the semi-finals, if the match was level at the end of 90 minutes, no

extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played onl ...

would be played and the match would be decided by a

penalty shoot-out The penalty shootout is a method of determining a winner in sports matches that would have otherwise been drawn or tied. The rules for penalty shootouts vary between sports and even different competitions; however, the usual form is similar to pe ...

. In the third place match and final, if the match was level at the end of 90 minutes,

would be played, and if still tied after extra time, the match would be decided by a

(Regulations Article 12.14).

Bracket

All times are local, CDT ( UTC−5).

Semi-finals

---- ''Canada and United States qualified for

. Panama and Jamaica entered into the third place play-off.''

Third place play-off

''Jamaica qualified for

. Panama entered CONCACAF–CONMEBOL play-off vs. Argentina.''

Final

Awards

Individual awards

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament.

Goalscorers

Qualification for international tournaments

Qualified teams for FIFA Women's World Cup

The following three teams from CONCACAF qualified for the

Panama Panama ( , ; es, link=no, Panamá ), officially the Republic of Panama ( es, República de Panamá), is a transcontinental country spanning the southern part of North America and the northern part of South America. It is bordered by Cos ...

failed to qualify losing out the

2018 Copa América Femenina The 2018 Copa América Femenina was the eighth edition of the CONMEBOL Copa América Femenina (also referred to as the ''Copa América Femenina''), the quadrennial international football competition for women's national teams in South America af ...

third-placed team,

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

Qualified teams for Pan American Games

The tournament was used to determine the four teams from CONCACAF which would qualify for the 2019 Pan American Games women's football tournament. The top team from each of the three zones, i.e., Caribbean (CFU), Central American (UNCAF), and North American (NAFU), would qualify, with the fourth team to be determined by CONCACAF at a later date. However, both

and

declined to participate to focus on the

, so Mexico qualified for the North American berth. :

² Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

Controversy

In the 89th minute of the final match, Alex Morgan was offside when she scored the second goal for the USA, but the referee did not invalidate the goal..

Video assistant referee The video assistant referee (VAR) is a match official in association football who reviews decisions made by the referee. The assistant video assistant referee (AVAR) is a current or former referee appointed to assist the VAR in the video ope ...

was not used in this tournament.

References

External links

World Cup Qualifying – Women
CONCACAF.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Concacaf Women's Championship 2018 2018–19 in CONCACAF football 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

2018 in women's association football October 2018 sports events in North America

2018 in American women's soccer Qualification tournaments for the 2019 Pan American Games United States at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup Canada at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup Jamaica at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup