Golden Jaguars in Pot 1
The Golden Jaguars, Guyana’s senior men’s football team has been placed in Pot-1 ahead of Concacaf’s Inaugural 2021 Gold Cup Draw which is to be staged on September 28th for Preliminary Qualifiers.
This was revealed via an official press release from the entity.
According to the correspondence, the pre-seeded teams and draw pot were based on the Concacaf rankings as of August 2020.
Guyana has been placed in Pot-1 alongside French Guiana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Montserrat and The Bahamas.
The pre-seeded teams are Haiti, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Guadeloupe and Bermuda. The preliminary round, which will be contested utilizing a direct elimination format, will be staged from July 2nd-6th in a centralized location in the United States. The main championship is scheduled for July 10th-August 1st.
The release disclosed, “The draw for the prelims will involve the 12 national teams which earned a place in the Gold Cup Qualifiers through their performances in the Concacaf Nations League group stage, which was played in September, October and November 2019. This includes the bottom placed finishers in League A groups, the runners-up in League B groups and the winners of League C groups. The top six teams based on the Concacaf Ranking will be pre-seeded into match-ups one through six, and the next six will be drawn from a single pot. After direct elimination play over three match-days from July 2 through July 6, 2021, the 12 teams will be reduced to a final three who will qualify for the Gold Cup Group Stage.”
The nations that have already qualified for the prestigious championship are Canada, Costa Rica, Curacao, El Salvador, Grenada, Honduras, Jamaica, Martinique, defending champion Mexico, Panama, Suriname and the United States. Qatar, the Asian Cup Champion of the Asian Football Confederation, will compete as a guest in the event, following a major collaboration between the two confederations.
Similarly, the draw for the group stage will also be staged, with the pre-seeded and pot draw teams allocated based on the identical August 2020 rankings.
The pre-seeded teams are defending champion Mexico (Group A), USA (Group B), Costa Rica (Group C) and Honduras (Group D). Pot-2 contains Jamaica, Canada,
Panama and El Salvador, while Pot- 3 comprises Martinique, Curacao, Suriname and Grenada. Pot-4 will contain the three preliminary winners and Qatar who has been placed in group-D.
According to the correspondence, “The draw for the Group Stage comprises the 12 national teams which qualified directly through their performances in the Concacaf Nations League group stage. They include the League A group winners and runners-up, and the League B group winners. Additionally, the AFC Asian Cup Champions, Qatar, will compete as a guest participant. The teams will be split into four pots based on the Concacaf Rankings and drawn into one of Groups A, B, C or D. The top four ranked nations (Pot 1) will be seeded based on the Concacaf Ranking, with the current Gold Cup Champions Mexico heading Group A, USA Group B, Costa Rica Group C and Honduras Group D. The remaining competing teams will be distributed in Pots 2, 3 and 4 based on their ranking. The guest team, Qatar, will be pre-drawn into the group which begins play on the latest date (Group D) as the team will also compete in the Copa America which concludes in early July.”
Upon the completion of the Gold Cup Group Stage, eight teams will advance to a newly formatted Knockout Phase in which teams on opposite sides of the bracket will meet from the Quarterfinals onwards. This is a change from previous Gold Cup tournaments when teams only competed against opponents on the same side of the bracket until the Final.
The Golden Jaguars made history in 2019 as the first senior men’s team from Guyana to qualify for the Gold Cup, finishing third in a tough group containing runnersup United States, Panama and Trinidad & Tobago.