The North, Central American and Caribbean section of the

2018 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification process was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA FIFA#Structure, confederations to decide 31 of the 32 teams which would play in the 2018 FIFA World Cup, with Russia national football team, Rus ...

acted as qualifiers for the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

in Russia, for national teams which are members of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF). 3.5 slots (3 direct slots and 1 inter-confederation play-off slot) in the final tournament were available for CONCACAF teams. In a change to previous qualification tournaments for this confederation, the first three rounds were played as knockout rounds, with both the fourth round and the final round (referred to as the "

Hexagonal In geometry, a hexagon (from Greek , , meaning "six", and , , meaning "corner, angle") is a six-sided polygon. The total of the internal angles of any simple (non-self-intersecting) hexagon is 720°. Regular hexagon A regular hexagon is d ...

") played as group stages. The first round was played during the FIFA international dates of 23–31 March 2015. CONCACAF announced the full format details on 12 January 2015. 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 ...

failed to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time since

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. ** Spain and Portugal en ...

after a surprise defeat by

Trinidad and Tobago Trinidad and Tobago, officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago, is the southernmost island country in the Caribbean, comprising the main islands of Trinidad and Tobago, along with several List of islands of Trinidad and Tobago, smaller i ...

. As a result,

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 ...

reached the World Cup for the first time in their history.

Format

The qualification structure was as follows: *First round: 14 teams (lowest ranked teams were assigned spots 22–35) played home-and-away over two legs. The winners advanced to the second round. *Second round: 20 teams (second lowest ranked teams were assigned spots 9–21 and seven first round winners) played home-and-away over two legs. The winners advanced to the third round. *Third round: 12 teams (teams ranked 7–8 by CONCACAF and ten second round winners) played home-and-away over two legs. The winners advanced to the fourth round. *Fourth round: 12 teams (teams ranked 1–6 by CONCACAF and six third round winners) were divided into three groups of four teams to play home-and-away round-robin matches. The top two of each group advanced to the fifth round. *Fifth round: Six teams which had advanced from the fourth round played home-and-away round-robin matches in one group (often referred to as the "Hexagonal"). The top three qualified for the

, and the fourth-placed team advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Entrants

All 35 FIFA-affiliated national teams from CONCACAF entered qualification. The seeding – used to draw the first four rounds of the qualifiers – was based on the

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their gam ...

of August 2014 (shown in parentheses).

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows. The inter-confederation play-offs were scheduled to be played between 6–14 November 2017.

First round

The draw for the first round was held on 15 January 2015, 19:40 EST ( UTC−5), at the W Hotel at

Miami Beach, Florida Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, United States.

Second round

The draw for the second round was held on 15 January 2015, 19:40 EST ( UTC−5), at the W Hotel at

, United States.

Third round

The draw for the third round was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (

UTC+3 UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a UTC offset, time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours ahead of the Coordinated Universal Time, Coordinated Universal Time (UTC). Following the ISO 8601 standard, ...

), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in

Strelna Strelna ( rus, Стре́льна, p=ˈstrʲelʲnə) is a municipal settlement in Petrodvortsovy District of the federal city of Saint Petersburg, Russia, about halfway between Saint Petersburg proper and Petergof, and overlooking the shore ...

Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, Russia.

Fourth round

The draw for the fourth round was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (

), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in

, Russia.

Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

Fifth round

As with every World Cup qualification campaign since

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for Lunar water, frozen water, in soil i ...

, CONCACAF held a six-team, home-and-away round-robin group known as the '

', or 'Hex', as its final and decisive round. As a result of the abolition of the February and August fixtures from the FIFA calendar, the 'Hex' for the first time was not contained within a single calendar year, but instead began in November 2016 and concluded in October 2017. The draw for the fifth round (to decide the fixtures) was held on 8 July 2016, 10:00 EDT ( UTC−4), at the CONCACAF headquarters in

Miami Beach Miami Beach is a coastal resort city in Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. It is part of the Miami metropolitan area of South Florida. The municipality is located on natural and human-made barrier islands between the Atlantic Ocean an ...

, United States.

Inter-confederation play-offs

The draw for the inter-confederation play-offs was held as part of the 2018 FIFA World Cup Preliminary Draw on 25 July 2015, starting 18:00 MSK (

), at the Konstantinovsky Palace in

. The fourth-placed team from CONCACAF was drawn against the fifth-placed team from

Asian Football Confederation The Asian Football Confederation (AFC) is the governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal in most countries and territories in Asia. The AFC was formed in 1954. It has 47 members. The Asian Ladies Football Confederation ( ...

(AFC), with the CONCACAF team hosting the first leg.

Qualified teams

The following three teams from CONCACAF qualified for the final tournament. :

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

Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round: *

First round First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

Second round The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

Third round Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

Fourth round Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'', a 1972 Soviet drama ...

Fifth round Fifth is the ordinal form of the number five. Fifth or The Fifth may refer to: * Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, as in the expression "pleading the Fifth" * Fifth Avenue * Fifth column, a political term * Fifth disease, a cont ...

Notes

References

External links

*
Qualifiers – North, Central America and Caribbean
FIFA.com
World Cup Qualifying – Men
CONCACAF.com {{2018 FIFA World Cup qualifiers

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 ...

FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF) 2014–15 in CONCACAF football 2015–16 in CONCACAF football 2016–17 in CONCACAF football 2017–18 in CONCACAF football