Concacaf (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football) is the confederation in charge of governing half of the American Continent soccer. Most of the members are small countries that do not have a big record playing in a World Cup. The three big names within Concacaf are United States, Mexico and Canada.
The favorite nations to qualify for the World Cup are the largest countries with the most budgets, in a nutshell United States is one of the teams with the best projection to qualify for the World Cup, but Canada and Mexico also enter the list of big favorites to play in Qatar 2022.
The format within Concacaf is quite simple, although it has undergone a couple of modifications over the years, the method of qualifying remains almost intact. The nations play in a first phase of six groups to play in another two rounds.
How many teams will qualify from Concacaf for the World Cup?
CONCACAF offers 3.5 slots for the member countries of the confederation, some teams must play all three qualifying phases to aspire for a direct slot or play in the inter-confederation playoffs.
How many stages do the World Cup Qualifiers have in Concacaf?
The nations play a first phase called Group Stage where the member teams of the confederation that have less FIFA ranking than the first five members of Concacaf play. After that stage the best teams of each group play in the second round to finally qualify for the last third round.
In the third round, three direct slots are offered to play in Qatar 2022, the three best teams in the standings play in the World Cup. On the other hand, a fourth team receives a special slot to play in the inter-confederation play-offs against a nation of the Oceania Football Confederation.
