The 2023–24 CONCACAF Nations League A was the top division of the 2023–24 edition of the

CONCACAF Nations League The CONCACAF Nations League (, ) is an association football competition organized by CONCACAF as its secondary continental tournament for men's senior national teams from North America, Central America and the Caribbean. The tournament takes pla ...

, the third season of the international

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

competition involving the men's national teams of the 41 member associations of

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 ...

. The initial group stage was held from 7 September 2023 to 17 October 2023. League A culminated with the

2024 CONCACAF Nations League Finals The 2024 CONCACAF Nations League Finals was the final tournament of the 2023–24 CONCACAF Nations League, 2023–24 edition of the CONCACAF Nations League, the third season of the international Association football, football competition involvin ...

in March 2024 to crown the champions of the CONCACAF Nations League. This edition of the CONCACAF Nations League A served to determine the six CONCACAF representatives that qualified as guests for the

2024 Copa América The 2024 Copa América was the 48th edition of the Copa América, the quadrennial international men's association football, soccer championship organized by South America's football ruling body CONMEBOL. The tournament was held in the United Sta ...

in the United States. The four quarter-finals winners and two play-in winners between the four quarter-finals losers qualified to the CONMEBOL tournament.

Format

Starting from this edition, League A was increased from twelve to sixteen teams and a new quarter-final round was introduced. The group stage became two groups of six teams instead of the four groups of three teams of previous editions, and four teams received a direct bye to the quarter-finals. The twelve lowest-ranked teams in the

CONCACAF Rankings 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 ...

as of March 2023 entered the group stage and were divided into two groups of six teams, with each team playing four matches against group opponents (two at home and two away) on a

Swiss-system A Swiss-system tournament is a non-eliminating tournament format that features a fixed number of rounds of competition, but considerably fewer than for a round-robin tournament; thus each competitor (team or individual) does not play all the other ...

format. The top two teams from each group advanced to the quarter-finals, and were joined by the four top-ranked teams in the CONCACAF Rankings as of March 2023. The quarter-finals were played on a

two-legged In sports (especially association football), a two-legged tie is a contest between two teams which comprises two matches or "legs", with each team as the home team in one leg. The winning team is usually determined by aggregate score, the sum of ...

home-and-away basis, with the four winners advancing to the Nations League Finals and qualifying directly to the

, while the four losers played two single-legged play-in matches for the last two berths to the CONMEBOL tournament. The Nations League Finals retained its previous format of a semi-final round, third place play-off and final match to determine the champions.

Teams

A total of sixteen national teams contested League A, including the twelve sides from the 2022–23 season and four promoted from the 2022–23 League B. As a result of the expansion to 16 teams, there were no relegated teams last season, so the twelve teams from the 2022–23 season remained in League A for this edition.

Team changes

The following were the team changes of League A from the 2022–23 season:

Nicaragua Nicaragua, officially the Republic of Nicaragua, is the geographically largest Sovereign state, country in Central America, comprising . With a population of 7,142,529 as of 2024, it is the third-most populous country in Central America aft ...

originally qualified for promotion to League A as League B Group C winners, but they were disqualified due to fielding an ineligible player. As a result, they were replaced by Trinidad and Tobago on 12 June 2023, and Nicaragua replaced Trinidad and Tobago in League B.

Teams promoted from League B

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

Haiti Haiti, officially the Republic of Haiti, is a country on the island of Hispaniola in the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and south of the Bahamas. It occupies the western three-eighths of the island, which it shares with the Dominican ...

, and

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 ...

returned to League A after a one-season absence.

Guatemala Guatemala, officially the Republic of Guatemala, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico, to the northeast by Belize, to the east by Honduras, and to the southeast by El Salvador. It is hydrologically b ...

reached the top division of the CONCACAF Nations League for the first time after starting in League C in the inaugural edition and moving up from League B the previous season.

Seeding

The pots were confirmed on 2 May 2023, with the lowest twelve League A ranked teams, based on the

as of 31 March 2023, being split into six pots of two teams. The top four ranked teams (Mexico, the United States, Canada and Costa Rica) were directly seeded in the quarter-finals.

Draw

The group stage draw was held on 16 May 2023, 19:00 EDT, in

Miami, Florida 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 ...

, United States where the twelve involved teams were drawn into two groups of six. The draw began by randomly selecting a team from Pot 1 and placing them in Group A and then selecting the remaining team from Pot 1 and placing them in Group B. The draw continued with the same procedure done for the remaining pots. The draw resulted in the following groups:

Group stage

The fixture list was confirmed by CONCACAF on 6 July 2023. All match times are in EDT ( UTC−4) as listed by CONCACAF (local times, if different, are in parentheses).

Group A

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

Group B

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

Quarter-finals

The quarter-finals pairings were determined based on the CONCACAF Rankings published after the October 2023 FIFA Match Window for the four pre-seeded teams and the group stage results for the winners and runners-up of each group. The match-ups were as follows: *Quarter-final 1 (QF1): Fourth-ranked seeded team vs. Best-ranked group winner *Quarter-final 2 (QF2): Third-ranked seeded team vs. Next best-ranked group winner *Quarter-final 3 (QF3): Second-ranked seeded team vs. Best-ranked group runner-up *Quarter-final 4 (QF4): First-ranked seeded team vs. Next best-ranked group runner-up

Each tie was played on a home-and-away

basis, with the order of legs being decided by the four pre-seeded teams that received a direct bye to the quarter-finals (Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, and the United States). If the

aggregate score There are a number of formats used in various levels of competition in sports and games to determine an overall champion. Some of the most common are the ''single elimination'', the ''best-of-'' series, the ''total points series'' more commonly kn ...

is level at the end of the second leg the

away goals rule The away goals rule is a method of tiebreaking in association football and other sports when teams play each other twice, once at each team's home ground. Under the away goals rule, if the total goals scored by each team are equal, the team that ...

would be applied. If away goals were also equal, then 30 minutes of

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 without taking into account the away goals rule during this time. If still tied after extra time, the tie 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 ...

. Winners advanced to the Nations League Finals and qualified for the

, while losers advanced to the Copa América qualifying play-offs.

Summary

The first legs were played from 16 to 18 November, and the second legs were played on 20 and 21 November 2023.

Matches

The fixture list was confirmed by CONCACAF on 6 July 2023. All match times are in EST ( UTC−5) as listed by CONCACAF (local times, if different, are in parentheses). ''Panama won 6–1 on aggregate, advanced to the Finals, and qualified for the

. Costa Rica advanced to the play-in.'' ---- ''United States won 4–2 on aggregate, advanced to the Finals, and qualified to the

. Trinidad and Tobago advanced to the play-in.'' ---- ''4–4 on aggregate. Jamaica won on away goals, advanced to the Finals, and qualified for the

. Canada advanced to the play-in.'' ---- ''2–2 on aggregate. Mexico won 4–2 on penalties, advanced to the Finals, and qualified for the

. Honduras advanced to the play-in.''

Nations League Finals

Seeding

Bracket

Semi-finals

----

Third place play-off

Final

Goalscorers

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:2023-24 CONCACAF Nations League A League A 2023–24 CONCACAF Nations League A