The 2018 CONCACAF Women's U-17 Championship was the 6th edition of the CONCACAF Women's U-17 Championship, the biennial international youth football championship organized by CONCACAF for the women's under-17 national teams of the North, Central American and Caribbean region. The tournament was initially to be hosted by Nicaragua, and was planned to take place between 19 – 29 April 2018, as announced by CONCACAF on 5 December 2017.[1] A total of eight teams participated in the tournament.
On 22 April 2018, four days into the tournament, CONCACAF announced the remainder of the championship was cancelled immediately due to security concerns caused by civil unrest in Nicaragua.[2][3] On 11 May 2018, CONCACAF announced the tournament would resume play on 6 June and conclude on 12 June 2018, with the remainder of the tournament hosted at the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida, United States. Six teams played in the remainder of the tournament, as Nicaragua and Puerto Rico were already eliminated and were set to face each other in their last match.[4]
The eight teams were drawn into two groups of four teams. Tournament hosts Nicaragua were seeded in position A1, while defending champions United States were seeded in position B1. The remaining six teams were allocated to pots 2–3, and drawn to the remaining six positions.[10]
Players born on or after 1 January 2001 are eligible to compete in the tournament. Each team must register a squad of 20 players, two of whom must be goalkeepers (Regulations Articles 15.C.2).[11]
Group stage
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), and if tied on points, the following tiebreaking criteria are applied, in the order given, to determine the rankings (Regulations Article 18.A.5):[11]
In the semi-finals, if the match is level at the end of 90 minutes, no extra time is played and the match is decided by a penalty shoot-out. In the third place match and final, if the match is level at the end of 90 minutes, extra time is played, and if still tied after extra time, the match is decided by a penalty shoot-out (Regulations Articles 11.C and 11.D).[11]