2010 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)

The CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football) qualification stage for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa consisted of 35 national teams competing for the three berths given automatically to CONCACAF by FIFA. The United States, Mexico and Honduras qualified. The fourth-place finisher, Costa Rica, played a two-game playoff with the CONMEBOL fifth-place finisher,^[1] Uruguay, for a possible fourth berth.

Format

The First and Second Rounds^[2] reduced the 35 entrants to 24 and 12 teams, respectively. The remaining 12 teams were then placed into three Third Round groups of four, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the Fourth and final qualification group. The Third Round began in August 2008 and ended in November 2008. The top 3 teams from the Fourth Round group of 6 (held from February to October 2009) qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The 4th place team competed in a home-and-away playoff against the 5th-place team from CONMEBOL.

Seeding

The draw took place on 25 November 2007 in Durban, South Africa^[3][4] and it determined the fixtures for the preliminary rounds. In addition, because second round winners are paired off for the third round, the top 13 seeds have been subdivided as follows:^[5]

• Pot A: The top 3 teams, who would be top seeds of each third round group.
• Pot B: The next 3 teams, who would be the seconds seeds of the third round groups.
• Pot C: The next 6 teams, who would receive a bye to the second round, and would not be drawn against a Pot A or Pot B team in that round.
• Pot D: St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who also receive a bye in the first round, but would be paired against one of the top 12 teams in Round 2.

In the 2nd round, the 13 top-ranked CONCACAF teams from the May 2007 FIFA World Ranking joined 11 winners from the 1st Round.

Pot A (byes to 2nd Round) (Ranked 1st to 3rd)	Pot B (byes to 2nd Round) (Ranked 4th to 6th)	Pot C (byes to 2nd Round) (Ranked 7th to 12th)
Mexico  United States  Costa Rica	Honduras  Panama  Trinidad and Tobago	Jamaica  Cuba  Haiti  Guatemala  Canada  Guyana
Pot D (byes to 2nd Round) (Ranked 13th)	Pot E (1st Round) (Ranked 14th to 24th)	Pot F (1st Round) (Ranked 25th to 35th)
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	Barbados  Suriname  Bermuda  Antigua and Barbuda  Saint Kitts and Nevis  Dominican Republic  El Salvador  Bahamas  Nicaragua  Grenada  Saint Lucia	Turks and Caicos Islands  Netherlands Antilles  British Virgin Islands  Dominica  Cayman Islands  Puerto Rico  Anguilla  Belize  U.S. Virgin Islands  Montserrat  Aruba

First round

The 22 teams ranked 14 to 35 competed in the First Round. Teams ranked 14th–24th were randomly drawn against teams ranked 25th–35th. Teams played home and away against their opponents, except three ties: Puerto Rico–Dominican Republic, Grenada–U.S. Virgin Islands and Montserrat–Suriname, which were played over one leg in late March due to several Member Associations failing to meet the new FIFA Stadium standards and being unable to secure a home venue.^[6] The winners advanced to the Second Round.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Group 1
Dominica	1–2	Barbados	1–1	0–1
Turks and Caicos Islands	2–3	Saint Lucia	2–1	0–2
Bermuda	4–2	Cayman Islands	1–1	3–1
Aruba	0–4	Antigua and Barbuda	0–3	0–1
Group 2
Belize	4–2	Saint Kitts and Nevis	3–1^1	1–1
Bahamas	(a) 3–3	British Virgin Islands	1–1	2–2^2
Dominican Republic	0–1	Puerto Rico	N/A	0–1 (aet)^3
Group 3
U.S. Virgin Islands	0–10	Grenada	N/A	0–10^3
Suriname	7–1	Montserrat	N/A	7–1^4
El Salvador	16–0	Anguilla	12–0	4–0^5
Nicaragua	0–3	Netherlands Antilles	0–1	0–2

¹ Belize moved their home leg to Guatemala.^[6]

² Both legs played in the Bahamas.^[6]

³ Played as one leg due to a lack of acceptable grounds for FIFA competition.^[6]

⁴ Played as one leg at Trinidad and Tobago because neither side are able to provide a suitable venue according to FIFA's guidelines.^[6]

⁵ Played in the United States because Anguilla's stadium is not a suitable venue.^[7]

Second round

In the Second Round, the 11 first round winners joined the 13 teams which received a bye to the Second Round. Teams ranked 1st–12th were randomly drawn against the unseeded teams (the 11 first round winners plus Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, which was ranked 13th). Teams played home and away against their opponents and the winners advanced to the next round. Matches took place in June 2008.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Group 1
United States	9–0	Barbados	8–0	1–0
Guatemala	9–1	Saint Lucia	6–0	3–1^1
Trinidad and Tobago	3–2	Bermuda	1–2	2–0
Antigua and Barbuda	3–8	Cuba	3–4	0–4
Group 2
Belize	0–9	Mexico	0–2^2	0–7
Jamaica	13–0	Bahamas	7–0	6–0^3
Honduras	6–2	Puerto Rico	4–0	2–2
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	1–7	Canada	0–3^4	1–4
Group 3
Grenada	2–5	Costa Rica	2–2	0–3
Suriname	3–1	Guyana	1–0	2–1
Panama	2–3	El Salvador	1–0	1–3
Haiti	1–0	Netherlands Antilles	0–0	1–0

¹ Saint Lucia moved their home leg to the United States.

² Belize moved their home leg to the United States.^[8]

³ Bahamas moved their home leg to Jamaica.^[9]

⁴ Order of legs reversed subsequent to original draw.^[10]

Third round

The winners from the Second Round were placed into three groups of four teams, where they played a double round robin home and away schedule. The top two teams from each group advanced to the Fourth Round.

Group 1

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  United States 6 5 0 1 14 3 +11 15  Trinidad and Tobago 6 3 2 1 9 6 +3 11  Guatemala 6 1 2 3 6 7 −1 5  Cuba 6 1 0 5 5 18 −13 3

Cuba  – 2–1 1–3 0–1 Guatemala  4–1 – 0–0 0–1 Trinidad and Tobago  3–0 1–1 – 2–1 United States  6–1 2–0 3–0 –

Group 2

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Honduras 6 4 0 2 9 5 +4 12  Mexico 6 3 1 2 9 6 +3 10  Jamaica 6 3 1 2 6 6 0 10  Canada 6 0 2 4 6 13 −7 2

Canada  – 1 – 2 1 – 1 2 – 2 Honduras  3 – 1 – 2 – 0 1 – 0 Jamaica  3 – 0 1 – 0 – 1 – 0 Mexico  2 – 1 2 – 1 3 – 0 –

Group 3

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  Costa Rica 6 6 0 0 20 3 +17 18  El Salvador 6 3 1 2 11 4 +7 10  Haiti 6 0 3 3 4 13 −9 3  Suriname 6 0 2 4 4 19 −15 2

Costa Rica  – 1 – 0 2 – 0 7 – 0 El Salvador  1 – 3 – 5 – 0 3 – 0 Haiti  1 – 3 0 – 0 – 2 – 2 Suriname  1 – 4 0 – 2 1 – 1 –

Fourth round

The six teams that reached the fourth round formed one double-round-robin, home-and-away group nicknamed the "Hexagonal." The top three teams qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The fourth place team qualified for a home-and-away play-off against the fifth-place team from CONMEBOL.

The allocation of teams in the draw took place in Johannesburg, South Africa on 22 November 2008.^[11]

Team Pld W D L GF GA GD Pts  United States 10 6 2 2 19 13 +6 20  Mexico 10 6 1 3 18 12 +6 19  Honduras 10 5 1 4 17 11 +6 16  Costa Rica 10 5 1 4 15 15 0 16  El Salvador 10 2 2 6 9 15 −6 8  Trinidad and Tobago 10 1 3 6 10 22 −12 6

Costa Rica  – 1–0 2–0 0–3 4–0 3–1 El Salvador  1–0 – 0–1 2–1 2–2 2–2 Honduras  4–0 1–0 – 3–1 4–1 2–3 Mexico  2 –0 4–1 1–0 – 2–1 2–1 Trinidad and Tobago  2–3 1–0 1–1 2–2 – 0–1 United States  2–2 2–1 2–1 2–0 3–0 –

• The United States, Mexico and Honduras qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
• Costa Rica advanced to the CONMEBOL/CONCACAF play-off.

Play-off against CONMEBOL team

The 4th place team played the 5th place team from the CONMEBOL (South American Zone) Qualification in a home and away play-off. The winner of this play-off qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

The draw for the order in which the two matches were played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau, the Bahamas.^[12] The CONCACAF side played the first leg at home.

Team 1	Agg.	Team 2	1st leg	2nd leg
Costa Rica	1–2	Uruguay	0–1	1–1

Uruguay won 2 – 1 on aggregate and qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

Goalscorers

As of 9 September, there have been 349 goals scored over 109 games, for an average of 3.20 goals per game.

Rank	Player	Total goals	Goals by round
			R1	R2	R3	R4	PO
1	Rudis Corrales	8	6	0	1	1	X
2	Carlos Pavón	7	—	0	0	7	Q
	Luton Shelton	7	—	5	2	X	X
4	Ali Gerba	6	—	4	2	X	X
	Bryan Ruiz	6	—	1	3	2	0
	Eliseo Quintanilla	6	1	2	1	2	X
	Carlos Ruíz	6	—	4	2	X	X
	Carlo Costly	6	—	0	1	5	Q
	Jozy Altidore	6	—	0	1	5	Q
10	Celso Borges	5	—	0	2	3	0
	Wensley Christoph	5	2	0	3	X	X
	Clint Dempsey	5	—	2	2	1	Q

"—" = First Round Bye
"X" = Eliminated
"Q" = Team qualified for World Cup and did not need playoff

4 goals

Álvaro Saborío Roberto Linares Ronald Cerritos Rodolfo Zelaya

Ricky Charles David Suazo Keon Daniel

Michael Bradley Brian Ching Landon Donovan

3 goals

Armando Alonso Shawn Hasani Martin Jason Roberts Ramón Núñez

Fernando Arce Cuauhtémoc Blanco Jared Borgetti Andrés Guardado

Pável Pardo Carlos Vela Clifton Sandvliet Dwight Yorke

2 goals

Kerry Skepple Deon McCauley Devaun Degraff John Barry Nusum Anadale Williams Dwayne De Rosario Alejandro Alpízar Walter Centeno Andy Furtado Froylan Ledezma Roy Myrie Victor Núñez Alonso Solís Jaime Colomé Jeniel Márquez

Jaine Valencia Cristian Castillo Julio Martínez Osael Romero William Antonio Torres Mario Rafael Rodríguez Gonzalo Romero Abner Trigueros Julio César de León Amado Guevara Wilson Palacios Deon Burton Marlon King Omar Bravo

Guillermo Franco Carlos Salcido Peter Villegas Kenwin McPhee Raydell Schuurman Russell Latapy Kerry Baptiste Carlos Edwards Cornell Glenn Stern John Kenwyne Jones DaMarcus Beasley Carlos Bocanegra Conor Casey Charlie Davies

1 goal

Okeem Challenger George Dublin Gayson Gregory Tyio Simon Teran Williams Michael Bethel Demont Mitchell Lesly St. Fleur Dwayne Stanford Rashida Williams Harrison Roches Elroy Smith Tyrell Burgess Kwame Steede Rohan Lennon Julián de Guzmán Andrew Hainault Issey Nakajima-Farran Tomasz Radzinski Adrian Serioux Marshall Forbes Allean Grant Randall Azofeifa Junior Diaz Freddy Fernández Pablo Herrera Leonel Duarte Hensy Muñoz Allianni Urgelles Richard Pacquette Luis Alonso Anaya Cesar Larios

Carlos Romeo Monteagudo Emerson Umaña Byron Bubb Dorset Langaigne Patrick Modeste Shane Rennie Jose Manuel Contreras Carlos Gallardo Marco Pappa Nigel Codrington Frantz Bertin Brunel Fucien Leonel Saint-Preux Alain Vubert Walter Martinez Hendry Thomas Melvin Valladares Omar Cummings Omar Daley Ricardo Fuller Ricardo Gardner Ian Goodison Tyrone Marshall Demar Phillips Andy Williams Nery Castillo Israel Castro Giovani Dos Santos Enrique Esqueda Jonny Magallón Rafael Márquez Francisco Palencia Óscar Rojas

Miguel Sabah Matías Vuoso Vladimir Farrell Anton Jongsma Tyrone Loran Angelo Zimmerman José Luis Garcés Luis Tejada Chris Megaloudis Orlando Mitchum Gerard Williams Titus Elva Gilbert Nihyme Marlon James Kenzo Huur Melvin Valies Germaine Van Dijk Cleon Wondel Darryl Roberts Collin Samuel Hayden Tinto Gavin Glinton David Lowery Freddy Adu Jonathan Bornstein Ricardo Clark Kenny Cooper Frankie Hejduk Eddie Johnson Eddie Lewis Oguchi Onyewu

Own goals

Dario Sierra (for Antigua and Barbuda) Daryl Ferguson (for United States) Tervor Lennen (for Mexico)

Marvin González (for Mexico) Ricardo Osorio (for Honduras) Eugene Martha (for Haiti)

Marlon Felter (for El Salvador) Derrik Garden (for El Salvador) Dwight Ferguson (for Grenada)

References

1. FIFA.com
2. CONCACAF
3. U.S. receives first-round bye in World Cup qualifying
4. FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking - CONCACAF Zone
5. Preliminary Draw Information - North, Central America and Caribbean, FIFA, retrieved 23 November 2007
6. New World fixtures firmed, FIFA; 11 January 2008.
7. Anguilla-El Salvador World Cup qualifier moved to Washington, USA Today; 22 January 2008.
8. Mexico-Belize World Cup qualifier moved to Houston, SI.com; 15 May 2008.
9. Jamaica to host both legs of WC Qualifier against The Bahamas, Jamaica Observer; 11 May 2008.
10. Opener Against Saint Vincent & the Grenadines Moved, The Voyageurs; 10 January 2008.
11. CONCACAF Final Round Qualifying Draw to Take Place on Nov. 22 in Johannesburg, U.S. Soccer.
12. Intercontinental play-off dates confirmed

External links

• North, Central America & Caribbean Zone at FIFA.com