USMNT: 2018 World Cup Qualifying begins November 2015
By Phil Naegely
On Monday, CONCACAF announced that qualifying dates for the 2018 World Cup. USMNT will begin their path during November 2015 in the fourth round of competition. This is quite early compared to past qualifying cycles. 35 countries within CONCACAF will compete for the right to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.
The process will start on January 25th in Miami when teams are drawn to determine the matches for the first two rounds of the five-round regionally qualifying tournament. The first round will begin in March and will feature seeds No. 22 through No.35. These seedings are based on the August edition of the FIFA rankings.
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First round action will take place between March 22-31 and include seven home-and-away series. Those teams entering in the first round include St. Kitts & Nevis, Belize, Montserrat, Dominica, Barbados, Bermuda, Nicaragua, Turks & Caicos, Curacao, US Virgin Islands, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, British Virgin Islands, Anguilla.
In the second round, teams ranked 9-21 (Canada, Cuba, Aruba, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Suriname, Guatemala, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, St. Lucia, Grenada, Antigua & Barbuda, Guyana, Puerto Rico will join the seven Round One series winners. These teams will play home-and-away series to be held between June 8-16, 2015.
Round three will take place from August 31-September 8 and will consist of 10 more home-and-away series between the round two winners and no. 7 and no. 8 ranked Jamaica and Haiti , respectively.
The final six members will enter in round four, which will consist of three groups of four (12 teams), will be played in a round-robin format between November 2015 and September 2016.
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Round five, or more commonly known as the CONCACAF Hex, will take place between November 2016 and January 2017. It will feature the top-2 teams from each round 4 group. A total of six teams will then battle for three qualification spots for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. Currently, a fourth-place team will play in a play-in spot against TBD opponent.
As per the press release from CONCACAF, rounds three, four, and five will have a separate draw for groupings then the January draw for rounds one and two, “The match-ups and groupings for Rounds Three, Four and Five of CONCACAF World Cup qualifying will be determined at the FIFA World Cup Qualifying Draw in St. Petersburg, Russia, on July 25, 2015.”
There’s a lot of soccer to be played between now and the 2018 World Cup. The USMNT World Cup journey will begin in November, but they have more important competition to worry about in the near future in the 2015 Gold Cup. Yes, they need to plan for November, but Klinsmann has ample time to asses his pool of players before qualifying begins.