2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship

2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship

Tournament details
Host country	United States
Dates	4 – 17 October
Teams	8 (from 1 confederation)
Venue(s)	3 (in 3 host cities)
Final positions
Champions	United States (8th title)
Runners-up	Canada
Third place	Jamaica
Fourth place	Panama
Tournament statistics
Matches played	16
Goals scored	83 (5.19 per match)
Top scorer(s)	Alex Morgan (7 goals)
Best player(s)	Julie Ertz
Best young player	Jody Brown
Best goalkeeper	Yenith Bailey
Fair play award	United States
← 2014 2022 →

The 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship was the 10th edition of the CONCACAF Women's Championship (also known as the CONCACAF Women's Gold Cup or the CONCACAF Women's World Cup Qualifying Tournament), the quadrennial international football championship organized by CONCACAF for the women's national teams of the North, Central American and Caribbean region. Eight teams played in the tournament, which took place from 4 to 17 October 2018 in the United States.^[1][2]

The tournament served as the CONCACAF qualifiers to the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup in France. The top three teams qualified for the World Cup, while the fourth-placed team advanced to a play-off against the third-placed team from the South American confederation, CONMEBOL.^[3] It also determined the CONCACAF teams playing at the 2019 Pan American Games women's football tournament in Lima, Peru.^[4]

The United States were the defending champions of the competition. They successfully defended their title as hosts, winning the final 2–0 against Canada for their 8th CONCACAF Women's Championship title.^[5]

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.^[6]

Regional qualification tournaments were held to determine the teams playing in the final tournament.

The following eight teams qualified for the final tournament. Canada, Mexico, and the United States, as members of the North American Football Union (NAFU), qualified automatically. Two teams from the Central American Football Union (UNCAF) and three teams from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) qualified from their regional qualifying competitions.

Team	Qualification	Appearance	Previous best performance	Previous FIFA Women's World Cup appearances	FIFA ranking at start of event[7]
North American Zone (NAFU)
Canada	Automatic	9th	Champions (1998, 2010)	6	5
Mexico	Automatic	9th	Runners-up (1998, 2010)	3	24
United States (title holders & hosts)	Automatic	9th	Champions (1991, 1993, 1994, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2014)	7	1
Costa Rica	Central American winners	7th	Runners-up (2014)	1	34
Panama	Central American runners-up	3rd	Group stage (2002, 2006)	0	66
Jamaica	Caribbean winners	6th	Fourth place (2006)	0	64
Trinidad and Tobago	Caribbean runners-up	10th	Third place (1991)	0	52
Cuba	Caribbean third place	1st	Debut	0	88

The venues were announced by CONCACAF on 8 April 2018. Sahlen's Stadium in Cary, North Carolina and H-E-B Park in Edinburg, Texas hosted the group stage matches, while Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas hosted the four matches in the knockout stage.^[8]

Cary, North Carolina	Edinburg, Texas	Frisco, Texas	Cary Edinburg Frisco class=notpageimage| Location of the host cities of the 2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship.
Sahlen's Stadium	H-E-B Park	Toyota Stadium
Capacity: 10,000	Capacity: 9,735	Capacity: 20,500

The draw for the final tournament was held on 4 September 2018, 10:00 EDT (UTC−4), at the Univision Studios in Miami, Florida, United States.^[9][10] The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. They were seeded into four pots. Pot 1 contained the United States, seeded in Group A, and Canada, 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.

Pot 1	Pot 2	Pot 3	Pot 4
United States (Position A1)  Canada (Position B1)	Mexico  Costa Rica	Trinidad and Tobago  Jamaica	Panama  Cuba

The provisional 35-player roster (4 must be goalkeepers) for each team was announced by CONCACAF on 10 September 2018.^[11] The final 20-player roster (2 must be goalkeepers) for each team was announced by CONCACAF on 26 September 2018.^[12] After the final 20-player roster was submitted, only injury-related changes would be submitted until 24 hours before each team's first match.^[13]

The top two teams of each group advance to the semi-finals.

Tiebreakers

Teams are ranked according to points (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):^[13]

If two or more teams are equal on the basis of the above three criteria, their rankings are determined as follows:

All times are local, EDT (UTC−4).^[14]

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	United States (H)	3	3	0	0	18	0	+18	9	Knockout stage
2	Panama	3	2	0	1	5	5	0	6
3	Mexico	3	1	0	2	4	9	−5	3
4	Trinidad and Tobago	3	0	0	3	1	14	−13	0

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All times are local, CDT (UTC−5).^[14]

Pos	Team v t e	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts	Qualification
1	Canada	3	3	0	0	17	1	+16	9	Knockout stage
2	Jamaica	3	2	0	1	10	2	+8	6
3	Costa Rica	3	1	0	2	9	4	+5	3
4	Cuba	3	0	0	3	0	29	−29	0

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In the semi-finals, if the match was level at the end of 90 minutes, no extra time would be played and the match would be decided by a penalty shoot-out. In the third place match and final, if the match was level at the end of 90 minutes, extra time would be played, and if still tied after extra time, the match would be decided by a penalty shoot-out (Regulations Article 12.14).^[13]

All times are local, CDT (UTC−5).^[14]

	Semi-finals				Final
	14 October – Frisco, TX
	Panama	0
					17 October – Frisco, TX
	Canada	7
					Canada	0
	14 October – Frisco, TX
					United States	2
	United States	6
	Jamaica	0
					Third place play-off
					17 October – Frisco, TX
					Panama	2 (2)
					Jamaica (p)	2 (4)

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Canada and United States qualified for 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Panama and Jamaica entered into the third place play-off.

Jamaica qualified for 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Panama entered CONCACAF–CONMEBOL play-off vs. Argentina.

2018 CONCACAF Women's Championship winners
United States 8th title

The following awards were given at the conclusion of the tournament.^[15]

Award	Player
Golden Ball	Julie Ertz
Golden Boot	Alex Morgan (7 goals)
Golden Glove	Yenith Bailey
Young Player	Jody Brown
Fair Play	United States

Best XI

Goalkeepers	Defenders	Midfielders	Forwards
Yenith Bailey	Kelley O'Hara Quinn[a] Abby Dahlkemper Crystal Dunn	Jessie Fleming Julie Ertz Lindsey Horan	Tobin Heath Alex Morgan Megan Rapinoe

There were 83 goals scored in 16 matches, for an average of 5.19 goals per match.

7 goals

6 goals

4 goals

3 goals

2 goals

1 goal

The following three teams from CONCACAF qualified for the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup. Panama failed to qualify losing out the play-off to 2018 Copa América Femenina third-placed team, Argentina.

Team	Qualified on	Previous appearances in FIFA Women's World Cup1
Canada	14 October 2018[16]	6 (1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015)
United States	14 October 2018[16]	7 (1991, 1995, 1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015)
Jamaica	17 October 2018[17]	0 (debut)

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

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.^[4] However, both United States and Canada declined to participate to focus on the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, so Mexico qualified for the North American berth.^[18]

Team	Zone	Qualified on	Previous appearances in Pan American Games2
Jamaica	CFU	11 October 2018	1 (2007)
Panama	UNCAF	11 October 2018	1 (2007)
Mexico[18]	NAFU	2019 (confirmed by CONCACAF)	5 (1999, 2003, 2007, 2011, 2015)
Costa Rica[18]	UNCAF	2019 (confirmed by CONCACAF)	4 (1999, 2003, 2011, 2015)

² Bold indicates champions for that year. Italic indicates hosts for that year.

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.^[19] Video assistant referee was not used in this tournament.

• World Cup Qualifying – Women, CONCACAF.com