CanWNT learn WCQ, Olympic fate in 2022 CONCACAF W Championship Draw
Tonight at 7 PM ET/4 PM PT, Canada will learn its fate in World Cup and Olympic qualifying, as Concacaf holds the official draw for the 2022 CONCACAF W Championships (available on OneSoccer, 6:30PM ET).
The 8 participating teams in the tournament will see their potential paths towards glory charted out, giving them a better idea of what awaits them in July down in Monterrey, Mexico.
And for the Canadian Women’s National Team, it allows planning to officially begin as they begin their journey towards the 2023 World Cup, 2024 Olympics and 2024 Gold Cup.
But seeing that and knowing how important the CONCACAF W Championship is for Canada’s long-term future, a question begs to be asked ahead of tonight - how does the draw for that tournament work?
That’s a great question, but one that can be answered quite easily.
Firstly, it’s worth noting that to get to this point, the W Championship already technically began earlier this year, as 30 teams were split into 6 groups of 5, where each team played everyone in their group once over the months of February and April as part of qualifiers for this summer.
Then, the 6 winners of those groups qualified for the tournament proper, where they joined Canada and the US, the two top-ranked teams in CONCACAF – a distinction that earned the pair a bye to the final round.
And that’s where we find ourselves today.
Those 8 teams, automatic qualifiers Canada and US, along with the group winners Mexico, Costa Rica, Jamaica, Panama, Haiti, and Trinidad and Tobago, have been separated into 4 different pots, from which they’ll be drawn in order to be split into two groups - Group A and Group B.
So seeing that, here’s a look at how the pots have been allocated for this tournament.
Pots are set ✅ Who do you want your team to match up against?
— Concacaf W (@ConcacafW) April 18, 2022
The Official Draw is this Tuesday, April 19th at 7pm ET!
More info → https://t.co/zoeE6s2akF pic.twitter.com/s96h4ssiwa
From there, the rest is simple.
The US will be drawn into Group A, and Canada into Group B (that’s already been predetermined), and then after that, teams will be randomly drawn to join them in each group from Pot 2, Pot 3 and Pot 4, rounding off each group at 4 teams.
Then, once that is done, all that'll be left is for teams to compete for the 4 spots in the World Cup (and 2 half spots), 2 spots at the Olympics and 1 spot at the Gold Cup that is officially up for grabs later this summer (for more on how the CONCACAF W Championships will work, here's our primer on what's at stake for Canada in July.)
So as a result, this makes this draw quite important for Canada, as depending on who they draw, it could have a massive impact on their World Cup, Olympic and Gold Cup hopes, making it something to keep a close eye on.
TUNE IN TONIGHT (6:30PM ET) on the OneSoccer YouTube channel to watch the Concacaf W Championship OFFICIAL DRAW, including our pre-show with Andi Petrillo, Kaylyn Kyle, and yours truly!
