It was announced Thursday that the U.S. will host the 2015 CONCACAF men’s Olympic soccer qualification tournament, set for October.
The road to Rio de Janeiro, at least for men’s soccer in North and Central America and the Caribbean, will run through the United States.
CONCACAF—which is The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football—announced Thursday that the men’s Olympic qualifying championships in October will be hosted by the U.S.
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The Olympics are a U23 competition and the CONCACAF qualifying will yield two Olympic berths plus a wild-card berth that could play into the Olympic field.
Eight countries will be divided into two groups of four, with the top two finishers in each group advancing to the semifinals.
Host venues and ticketing information will be announced later.
The U.S. earns a spot in qualifying, as do automatic North American qualifiers Canada and Mexico—the defending Olympic champions. Andreas Herzog, an assistant to Jurgen Klinsmann with the senior men’s national team, will coach the Olympic qualifying squad for the U.S.
Three countries from Central America and two from the Caribbean will be added to the field through qualifying in those regions.
Group play will run from Oct. 1-7. The final match day in group play, along with the semifinals, third-place match and final, fall in the FIFA match date window of Oct. 5-13, meaning that all nations will be able to recall their top U23 players from their respective professional club teams to play in the decisive phase of the qualifying tournament.
The two teams that reach the CONCACAF final will automatically qualify for the Rio Games, while the winner of the third-place game will earn a berth in a playoff against South American runner-up Colombia, with the winner of that match also advancing to the Olympic field of 16 nations.
The U.S. also hosted the CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament for the 2012 London Games, with matches played in Kansas City, Los Angeles and Nashville.
Soccer has been part of the Olympics continuously since the 1936 Berlin Games and was switched to a U23 competition for the 1992 Games in Barcelona.
The U.S. has never won an official medal in men’s soccer at the Olympics. Their only two medals came in the 1904 Games in St. Louis, when it was still an exhibition sport. The Americans won both the silver and bronze medals in those Games.
Of course, it was sort of difficult not to medal since there were just three teams in the competition. Canadian side Galt FC won the gold medal, with Christian Brothers College taking silver and St. Rose Parish the bronze.
Hungary has won the most gold medals in Olympic men’s soccer with three. Great Britain also has three golds, but one of those was when it was an exhibition sport at the 1900 Paris Olympics.
Argentina, the Soviet Union and Uruguay have won two golds each.
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