The third round of CONCACAF matches for

2022 FIFA World Cup qualification The 2022 FIFA World Cup qualification was the FIFA World Cup qualification, qualifying process which decided the 31 teams that would join hosts Qatar national football team, Qatar, who received an automatic spot, at the 2022 FIFA World Cup. Par ...

, nicknamed the Octagonal (for the eight teams participating), was played from September 2021 to March 2022.

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 ...

(qualifying 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 ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, and 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 ...

qualified for the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

, while

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

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 ...

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

El Salvador El Salvador, officially the Republic of El Salvador, is a country in Central America. It is bordered on the northeast by Honduras, on the northwest by Guatemala, and on the south by the Pacific Ocean. El Salvador's capital and largest city is S ...

, and

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

were eliminated in this round. The match on 16 November 2021 between Canada and Mexico, held in

Edmonton Edmonton is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Alberta. It is situated on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Metropolitan Region, which is surrounded by Central Alberta ...

, marked the coldest match played in Mexican football history, kicking off at with a heavy snowstorm the day before. The match was seen by 2.1 million viewers in the United States on the day of its original broadcast, becoming Telemundo's most-watched sporting event since the 2019 Copa América final.

Format

Eight teams (CONCACAF teams ranked 1 to 5 based on the

FIFA 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 List of men's national football teams, men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governi ...

of July 2020, and the three winners of the

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 ...

) played against each other home-and-away in a round-robin format for a total of 14 matches per team. The top three teams qualified for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, while the fourth-placed team advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs to get one of the last 2 places in the tournament.

Schedule

The third round was originally scheduled to begin in June 2021, but was postponed by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The full schedule for the third round was announced on 16 June 2021, and confirmed on 9 August 2021.

Qualified teams

The top five teams based on the

of July 2020 (shown in parentheses) received a bye to the third round. For consistency, the three winners of the

are shown with their FIFA rankings as of July 2020.

Draw

The draw for the third round was held, along with the draw for the

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 ...

, on 19 August 2020, 19:00 CEST (

UTC+2 UTC+02:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +02:00. In ISO 8601, the associated time would be written as 2020-11-08T23:41:45+02:00. As standard time (year-round) Principal cities: Pretoria, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Durban, Por ...

), at the FIFA headquarters in

Zürich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...

, Switzerland. Teams were drawn from a single pot, and then were allocated a position (from 1 to 8) to determine the match schedule. The identity of the three

winners was not known at the time of the draw. Note: Bolded teams qualified for the

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...

. ''Costa Rica'' advanced to the inter-confederation play-offs.

Standings

Matches

Matchday 1

---- ---- ----

Matchday 2

---- ---- ----

Matchday 3

---- ---- ----

Matchday 4

---- ---- ----

Matchday 5

---- ---- ----

Matchday 6

---- ---- ----

Matchday 7

---- ---- ----

Matchday 8

---- ---- ----

Matchday 9

---- ---- ----

Matchday 10

---- ---- ----

Matchday 11

---- ---- ----

Matchday 12

---- ---- ----

Matchday 13

---- ---- ----

Matchday 14

---- ---- ----

Statistics

Goalscorers

Awards

;Best XI CONCACAF announced the following squad as the best eleven of the third round of qualifying after the conclusion of the campaign.

Notes

References

External links

*
Qualifiers – North, Central America and Caribbean: Matches
FIFA.com
World Cup Qualifying – Men
CONCACAF.com {{DEFAULTSORT:2022 Fifa World Cup qualification Concacaf third round 3 Qual3 FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round FIFA World Cup qualification - CONCACAF third round Canada at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Costa Rica at the 2022 FIFA World Cup Mexico at the 2022 FIFA World Cup United States at the 2022 FIFA World Cup