Jamaica U-20s to learn World Cup route in early November

JAMAICA’S UNDER-20 Reggae Boyz will know who and from what group they will play in the Concacaf Under-20 Qualifiers as early as November.

The U20 qualifiers do not begin until February 23 and will run until March 4 of 2026, while the Concacaf U-20 Championship, for which teams try to qualify in a bid to make it to the FIFA U-20 World Cup, runs from July 25 to August 9, 2026.

Participating member associations ranked from seven to 41 compete for six available slots in the 2026 Concacaf U-20 Championship, and the draw for that competition is slated for November 6.

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 United States (1), Mexico (2), Honduras (3), Panama (4), Cuba (5), and Guatemala (6), have already qualified for the tournament as the six seeded teams.

According to the competition’s regulations, the participating member associations will be seeded into six pots for the draw, based on the Concacaf Under-20 Ranking as of August 5, 2024.

Jamaica are ranked sixth among the unseeded teams and so make their way into Pot 1.

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.

The 12-team U-20 Championship 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, comprising the quarterfinals, semifinals, and final.