Key Details Announced for 2026 Concacaf U-20 Qualifiers | OneFootball

Miami, FL – Concacaf has announced key details about the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Qualifiers. The tournament, which will serve as the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship qualifying competition, is set to be disputed among the Confederation’s Member Associations ranked between 7 and 41, and will take place from Feb. 23 to March 4, 2026.

After round-robin play, the first-place team from each group will advance to the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship, joining the six top-ranked nations that are pre-qualified directly to the tournament.

The complete match schedule for the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Qualifiers will be announced after the official draw.

The Qualifiers matches will take place across venues in three nations: Costa Rica, Curaçao and Nicaragua.

The 32 national teams participating in the qualifiers are (in alphabetical order): Anguilla, Antigua and Barbuda, Aruba, Barbados, Belize, Bermuda, Bonaire, British Virgin Islands, Canada, Costa Rica, Curaçao, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, French Guiana, Grenada, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Martinique, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Maarten, Suriname, Trinidad and Tobago, Turks and Caicos, and US Virgin Islands.

The six national teams pre-seeded in the Championship are (in ranking order): United States (1), Mexico (2), Honduras (3), Panama (4), Cuba (5), and the Guatemala (6).

The competition’s official draw is scheduled for Thursday, Nov. 6, 2025, at 11 a.m. ET. Fans can follow the event on Concacaf’s YouTube channel.

Draw Details

According to competition regulations, the participating Member Associations will be seeded into six pots for the draw based on the Concacaf Under-20 Ranking as of Aug. 5, 2024 (listed in ranking order per pot):

Pot 1: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Canada, Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica 

Pot 2: Trinidad and Tobago, Nicaragua, Curaçao, Antigua and Barbuda, Suriname, and Puerto Rico 

Pot 3: Bermuda, Aruba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Belize, Saint Lucia, and Guyana 

Pot 4: Grenada, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Barbados, and Martinique 

Pot 5: Dominica, Saint Martin, Sint Maarten, Anguilla, US Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos 

Pot 6: French Guiana and Bonaire 

Starting with Pot 1, teams will be placed into Groups A, B, C, D, E, and F according to the order they are drawn, with no more than one team from each pot per group.

2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship

The 12-team Championship is scheduled for the summer of 2026, running from July 25 to Aug. 9, and will feature the region's 12 best men's U-20 national teams divided into three groups of four. The tournament will also serve as the qualifying competition for both the 2027 FIFA Men's U-20 World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.

After round-robin play, the two top teams of each group and the two best third place teams will advance to a Knockout Stage comprised of the Quarterfinals, Semifinals, and Final. 

Further details regarding the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship, including the tournament's host nation and draw details, will be published at a later date. 

In the previous edition of the Concacaf U-20 Championship, played in Mexico in 2024, Mexico won the title by defeating the United States 2-1 in the Final.