Photo: Concacaf Confederation
The final eight teams are officially in place for the Concacaf W Championship, which will take place in November and December 2026. The tournament will serve as the qualifiers for the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup and the 2028 Summer Olympics.
Concacaf will have four automatic qualification spots for the World Cup, which will go to the four teams that make the W Championship semifinals. There are two playoff spots from Concacaf up for grabs, too, which will go to the winners of the four-team play-in matches.
As for the Olympics, the two teams in the W Championship finale match will qualify, as well as the third-place finisher. The Olympics have expanded to 16 teams, with three from Concacaf.
The United States women’s national team and Canada qualified for the Concacaf W Championship automatically due to their FIFA rankings in August 2025. The top-two teams from Concacaf that rank highest from FIFA earn their qualification to the Concacaf W Tournament automatically.
Six other nations — Mexico, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Panama, Haiti and El Salvador — qualified through the Concacaf W Championship Qualification matches. Each team finished at the top of their respective groups.
Here is a breakdown of how all eight teams qualified.
United States & Canada
The United States and Canada both qualified for the Concacaf W Tournament due to their FIFA rankings on August 14, 2025. The U.S. was ranked at No. 2 — just behind Spain — while Canada was ranked at No. 9.
Mexico
Mexico won all four of its Concacaf W qualifiers in Group A. Last year, to kick off the qualifiers, the Mexican women’s national team earned a 14-0 win against Saint Vincent and the Grenadines — on the road. Charlyn Corral scored a whopping seven goals in the win. Mexico earned a 7-0 win against Saint Lucia in another road victory.
El Tri Femenil earned April victories against the U.S. Virgin Islands (9-0) and Puerto Rico (6-0) to close out the tournament. In the match against the U.S. Virgin Islands, Tigres forward Maria Sanchez scored four goals.
Corral was the qualifiers’ leading scorer across all 29 teams, totaling 13 goals. She scored twice against Saint Lucia, added two against the U.S. Virgin Islands and closed the tournament with two against Puerto Rico.
Mexico is looking to qualify for its first FIFA Women’s World Cup since 2015. Mexico hosted the last iteration of the Concacaf W Championship in 2022 but failed to qualify for the World Cup.
Jamaica
The Reggae Girlz also earned a perfect outing in their qualifiers for the Concacaf W Championship. Jamaica faced off with Nicaragua, Guyana, Dominica and Antigua and Barbuda.
Jamaica kicked off the qualifiers with a massive 18-0 victory against Dominica, which saw nine players score. Manchester City striker Kadija “Bunny” Shaw scored a hat-trick, along with Jody Brown. In March, Jamaica found themselves earning a slim 3-2 win on the road, against Nicaragua. Shaw scored twice, but it was Shania Hayles, who features for Newcastle United, who scored the game-winning goal.
In April, the Reggae Girlz earned a 4-0 victory against Antigua and Barbuda, then finished Group B competition with a 2-0 win against Guyana.
Shaw led Jamaica with nine goals, while Hayles, Brown and Daneisha Blackwood all tied for three goals apiece. Jamaica qualified for its first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2019, and also featured in the 2023 tournament. In 2023, the Reggae Girlz punched their ticket to the Round of 16.
Costa Rica
The Costa Rican women’s national team went four-for-four in Group C, facing off with Guatemala, Bermuda, Grenada and the Cayman Islands.
It was the game against the Cayman Islands that made headlines, as the Ticas earned a 21-0 victory — the largest win in the Concacaf W qualifiers. In that outing, which took place in Alajuela, Costa Rica, on April 10, Priscila Chinchilla scored seven goals, while seven other players found the back of the net. Rocky Rodriguez, of the Kansas City Current, and María Paula Salas, of Fenerbahçe S.K., both earned hat-tricks.
Costa Rica began its campaign, however, with a 2-1 win against Grenada, with Chinchilla scoring both goals. The Ticas went into the locker room tied at 1-1, before Chinchilla scored the game-winning goal in the 61st minute. In March, Costa Rica earned an 8-0 win against Bermuda, with Chinchilla and 19-year-old Sheika Scott earning braces. In April, the Ticas earned the 21-0 win against the Cayman Island and then closed Group C with a 3-0 win against Guatemala, thanks to goals from Chinchilla, Scott and Gloriana Villalobos.
Chinchilla led the Costa Ricans with 12 goals, the second-most of all players in the 29-team qualifiers. Scott, who plays for Paris FC, added five goals.
Costa Rica qualified for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup — the first in the nation’s history — but failed to qualify for the 2019 tournament. The Ticas made their comeback in 2023 but bowed out in the group stage after disastrous performances against Japan, Spain and Zambia.
Haiti
For the last eight years, no other team in Concacaf has seen an explosion of talent quite like Haiti. Les Grenadières qualified for the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, marking their first-ever appearance in the tournament. Despite finishing in the group stage, the Haitians held England and China to just one goal each.
Haiti began play in the Concacaf W qualifiers, in Group D, with a 9-0 win against Belize. Nérilia Mondésir of the Seattle Reign, scored four goals, while Fleury striker Batcheba Louis and Lyon midfielder Melchie Dumornay added two goals each. Haiti went on to defeat Suriname 2-0 on the road, with Nantes winger Roseline Éloissaint scoring in the 68th minute and Dumornay netting a penalty in the 89th minute.
Haiti closed out qualifiers with a 5-0 win against Anguilla, with goals from Darlina Joseph (brace), Chelsea Domond, Sherly Jeudy and Claire Constant, as well as a 1-1 tie against the Dominican Republic. For Haiti, Jeudy scored the lone goal, but Stella Tapia of the University of Michigan scored the tying goal for the visiting side.
Haiti qualified thanks to a 3-1-0 record, while the Dominican Republic faired 2-2-0, thanks to ties against both Haiti and Suriname. Mondésir finished as Haiti’s top scorer with four goals.
Panama
Panama went perfect in Group E, thanks to victories against Cuba, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Aruba and Curaçao. However, Panama did split clean sheets: two matches with zero goals against, two matches with at least one goal scored against.
Las Canaleras earned a 6-1 win against Curaçao to begin Group E competition, with a brace from Ericka Arauz of Rayadas de Chiriqui in Panama. The team followed that victory up with a clean-sheet, 3-0 win against Saint Kitts and Nevis, with goals from Rebeca Espinosa, Riley Tanner and Katherine Castillo.
In April, Panama closed out the qualifiers with a 3-1 win against Aruba — with goals from Tanner, Arlen Hernández and Karla Riley — and a 3-0 victory against Cuba. Arauz earned another brace and Cuba scored an own goal. Panama finished the qualifiers with 15 goals, with Arauz leading the pack after scoring four.
Panama qualified for its first-ever FIFA Women’s World Cup in 2023, finishing the tournament in the group stage. Panama’s highlight of the World Cup was scoring three goals in a 6-3 group stage finale against France, with tallies from Marta Cox, Yomira Pinzón and Lineth Cedeño.
El Salvador
For the first time ever, El Salvador will be competing in the Concacaf W Championship.
La Selecta, who have been led by Eric Acuña since November 2020, have never qualified for a FIFA Women’s World Cup or Olympic Games, let alone a final Concacaf qualification tournament. In 2022, El Salvador featured in the qualifiers for the final stage of the Concacaf W Championship but fell short to Panama.
Now, El Salvador is in, thanks to a perfect stint in qualifiers. Group F was the only group to host four teams — all of the other groups had five teams — so La Selecta recorded wins against Trinidad and Tobago, Honduras and Barbados.
El Salvador kicked off the qualifiers with a 3-0 win against Honduras, thanks to goals from Tijuana midfielder Danielle Fuentes, Puebla striker Abígail López and Texas State University forward Victoria Meza. In March, La Selecta posted a 13-0 clean sheet win against Barbados, with hat-tricks from Fuentes and Atlas forward Brenda Cerén. Five other players found the back of the net, with Leon midfielder Danya Gutiérrez and Club Deportivo Universidad Católica Femenino (Chile) forward Jackeline Velásquez earning braces.
In the Group F finale, El Salvador faced off with Trinidad and Tobago. The Soca Warriors previously recorded one win against Barbados and one tie against Honduras, giving El Salvador the edge. La Selecta earned a 2-0 win, thanks to a brace from Cerén. The Atlas striker finished the tournament with five goals.
