THE Lady Jags will once again be in action, this time at the 2022 CONCACAF Girls’ U15 Championship, which is scheduled to take place from July 31 to August 7 at the Hillsborough County Tournament Sportsplex in Tampa, Florida, United States.

According to CONCACAF, the developmental tournament will feature the participation of 31 Concacaf Member Associations, as well as one guest.

Guyana will enter as the tournament’s 20th ranked team, and will face Antigua and Barbuda, Bahamas, Bermuda, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Saint Kitts and Nevis, and Trinidad and Tobago in League B.

A release from CONCACAF said, to ensure sporting balance and fully leverage this exceptional development opportunity for all young players, the 32 participating teams will be divided into three leagues according to their Concacaf Women’s Under-17 Ranking of May 2022.

League A (seven highest-ranked teams and guest team) will bring together Canada, Costa Rica, Haiti, Jamaica, Mexico, Puerto Rico, the United States, and the guest nation. League C (lowest ranked teams) comprises Anguilla, Aruba, Belize, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Saint Lucia, Saint Martin, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Turks and Caicos Islands, and US Virgin Islands.

Competition Format
Within each League, the participating teams will be divided into groups of four teams each. After round robin play, the two group winners and second place finishers of League A will advance to the knockout stage and will play for the tournament’s championship.

For Leagues B and C, the three group winners and the best second-place finisher will advance to the semi-finals of their respective League.

Furthermore, the remaining teams in each League will dispute an additional match for the final position in the competition.

The knockout stage of each League will be contested in a single match direct elimination format, beginning with the semi-finals, followed by a final and third-place match.

With this format, each League will crown a Champion and guarantee that every participating team plays a minimum of four competitive matches.

CONCACAF will announce the groups and schedule in the upcoming weeks.

The previous edition of the CONCACAF Girls’ U-15 Championship took place in 2018, in Bradenton, Florida.

At the 2018 tournament, Guyana picked up wins against The Bahamas (3 – 2) and Curacao (6 – 0), while picking up defeats against St Lucia (1 – 3) and the Cayman Islands (0 – 2).

The United States won its second title at this age level after defeating Mexico 3-0 in the League A Final.

The 2020 edition of the competition was cancelled due to the Covid-19 pandemic.