A resounding win and a shocking result at the CONCACAF W Championship saw the U.S. women’s national team guarantee their place at the 2023 World Cup.
The USWNT’s 5-0 win over Jamaica was authoritative, but there were few indications that it would be enough to guarantee them of a spot in the World Cup on Thursday. After all, with the W Championship’s structure, only the top two teams in the two four-team groups would be assured of a place in next year’s tournament in Australia and New Zealand. Iif you take six points in a four-team group, it’s almost impossible to finish below second place, but there are few scenarios that allow a team to mathematically clinch a spot after only two games.
The only outcome that would allow the USWNT to actually start booking their facility and plane tickets for 2023 was Haiti—who fell 3-0 to the USWNT in the opening game of the tournament—taking points off of Mexico, who after a stunning 1-0 loss to Jamaica were facing an urgent need to win in front of expectant home fans.
Instead, they got a disaster. Haiti buried two penalty kicks and a free kick, while Mexico lost one defender to injury and another to a red card en route to a calamitous 3-0 defeat at Estadio BBVA.
The results leave the USWNT on six points, with Jamaica and Haiti both on three, and Mexico stuck at the bottom of the group on zero. With Jamaica and Haiti playing each other on Monday in the Group A finale, only one other team can get to six points, meaning that the USWNT will go to the World Cup no matter what happens on July 11.
For the other teams in the group, that isn’t the case. Jamaica vs. Haiti is now functionally a one-game playoff with a World Cup place on the line, while the third-place finisher in the group advances to an intricate playoff system that will take place in February 2023, winnowing ten teams down to the final three entrants for next summer’s World Cup.
The USWNT will turn its attention to the next objective: qualification for the 2024 Olympics. In the W Championship, only the winner of the tournament qualifies directly for the Paris gams, while the losing finalist and third-place game victor face off in a one-game playoff in September 2023 to be CONCACAF’s other Olympic entrant.
There are now 12 teams that have qualified for the 2023 World Cup. Australia and New Zealand are in as hosts, while five teams—Japan, South Korea, China, the Philippines, and Vietnam—have qualified from Asia. Europe adds the other four, with Sweden, Spain, France, and Denmark coming through UEFA’s qualification process.
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