The 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship was the 10th edition of the

CONCACAF Women's Championship The CONCACAF W Championship is a women's association football competition for national teams organized by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) that often serves as the qualifying competition ...

(also known as the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup or the CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament), the quadrennial international

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

championship organized by

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

for the women's national teams of the

North North is one of the four compass points or cardinal directions. It is the opposite of south and is perpendicular to east and west. ''North'' is a noun, adjective, or adverb indicating Direction (geometry), direction or geography. Etymology T ...

Central American Central America is a Subregion#North America, subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Ce ...

and

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

region. Eight teams played in the tournament, which took place from October 4 to 17, 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, football championship contested by 24 List of women's national association football teams, women's ...

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 eith ...

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

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

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

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

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 Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

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 is a women's association football competition for national teams organized by the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) that often serves as the qualifying competition ...

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; ; ) is a regional grouping under CONCACAF of national football organizations in the ''North American Zone''. The NAFU has no organizational structure. The statutes say "''CONCACAF shall ''recognize'' ... ...

(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 P ...

(UNCAF) and three teams from the

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

(CFU) qualified from their regional qualifying competitions.

Venues

The venues were announced by CONCACAF on April 8, 2018. Sahlen's Stadium in Cary,

North Carolina North Carolina ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, South Carolina to the south, Georgia (U.S. stat ...

and

H-E-B Park Robert and Janet Vackar Stadium (formerly H-E-B Park) is a stadium in Edinburg, Texas. It served as the home of Rio Grande Valley FC Toros of the USL Championship from 2017 to 2023, and currently serves as the home of the UTRGV Vaqueros football, ...

in Edinburg,

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

hosted the group stage matches, while Toyota Stadium in Frisco,

hosted the four matches in the knockout stage.

Draw

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

Miami Miami is a East Coast of the United States, coastal city in the U.S. state of Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, Florida, Miami-Dade County in South Florida. It is the core of the Miami metropolitan area, which, with a populat ...

Florida Florida ( ; ) is a U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders the Gulf of Mexico to the west, Alabama to the northwest, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the north, the Atlantic ...

. 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 September 10, 2018. The final 20-player roster (2 must be goalkeepers) for each team was announced by CONCACAF on September 26, 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 A point is a small dot or the sharp tip of something. Point or points may refer to: Mathematics * Point (geometry), an entity that has a location in space or on a plane, but has no extent; more generally, an element of some abstract topologica ...

(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 (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play 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 only if the game is required t ...

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 Argentina, officially the Argentine Republic, is a country in the southern half of South America. It covers an area of , making it the List of South American countries by area, second-largest country in South America after Brazil, the fourt ...

.''

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, officially the Republic of Panama, is a country in Latin America at the southern end of Central America, bordering South America. It is bordered by Costa Rica to the west, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north, and ...

failed to qualify losing out the

to 2018 Copa América Femenina third-placed team, Argentina. :

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 Assistant referee (association football), match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those revi ...

was not used in this tournament.

Notes

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 Events January * January 1 – Bulgaria takes over the Presidency of the Council of the European Union, after the Estonian presidency. * January 4 – SPLM-IO rebels loyal to Chan Garang Lual start a raid against Juba, capital of ...

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this sys ...

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