CONCACAF has announced the nations involved in the 2025-26 tournament and most of the teams are identified. We then look at the AFC Women’s Champions League semifinals and finals in the first year of the expanded competition, which previously had been conducted on an occasional and limited basis with only a few teams.
We have some thoughts on the first two confederation tournaments and a few suggestions, after comparing and contrasting the two formats. After the conclusion of the CONMEBOL U-17 tournament, we present the finalists for this year’s U-17 FIFA Women’s World Cup Finals in Morocco, to be held in October/November.
2025 Liga MX Femenil Clausura Review from Mexico
The top eight teams who made the 2024-25 Clausura playoffs were the same who made the 2024-25 Apertura playoffs with one exception, as Atlas replaced Toluca—who failed to advance to the postseason this spring.
With all three playoff rounds held over two legs, the four quarterfinal are described below.
In the first leg in Juarez on April 23, the Bravas stormed back from a 2-0 deficit just before the hour mark to tie the reigning league champions Club America 2-2, as American-born Jasmine Casarez (28)—who played at Radford University, the Puerto Rico Sol and scored 40 goals in 111 regular season and playoffs games with Juarez since joining the club for the 2021-22 Clausura—scored in the 69th minute, followed by a penalty kick goal in the 88th minute from Mexican international defender Liliana Mercado (36). Mercado is in her first season in Juarez after playing 242 games (with 24 goals) for Tigres UANL since the 2018/19 Apertura.
In the return at the 35,000 seat Estadio Ciudad de los Deportes in Mexico City on April 26, the stadium was a quarter filled with 8,423 fans as Club America demolished Juarez 5-0, building a 4-0 half-time lead, to take the tie 7-2 on aggregate. Nigerian international Chidinma Okeke (24) scored the ultimate winner in the 24th minute for America and a second goal in first half injury time. Okeke has played in Japan, Israel, Spain and at home. She joined Aguilas (Eagles) last August but had to earn playing time as the coaching staff found that she was not in playing shape—she has scored four times in 28 regular season and playoff matches in 2024-25.
Mexican international Angelique Montserrat Saldivar (18) also scored a first half brace. She played at the 2022 FIFA U-17 WWC in India and 2024 U-20 WWC in Colombia and scored 17 goals in the 2024-25 season from 35 games; she is definitely a prospect to watch for the future. This reporter watched this game live on Mexican television and America controlled the game from start to finish, with a 60%-40% advantage in ball control and seven shots on goal versus none for Juarez.
Club America looked extremely good and Juarez had trouble stringing any passes together; it seemed that Club America was playing with two extra women as they were able to intercept Juarez passes all over the field. On the basis of their performance in the quarterfinal second leg, Club America will be very hard to best in the 2025 Clausura playoffs,.
Atlas tied Pachuca 1-1 on April 23 in Guadalajara, with Costa Rica international forward Maria Salas’ (22) goal just before halftime giving Atlas the lead at the break. Salas has played in Mexico since the 2022-23 season, first starting at Monterrey. Iconic forward and Mexican international Charlyn Corral (33)—who has 136 goals in 161 Liga MX Femenil matches with Pachuca since the 2021-22 Apertura season and has played in the States, Finland and Spain—scored the equalizer just after the hour mark.
At home in the second leg on April 26, Pachuca won easily 4-1 over Atlas to win the tie on aggregate 5-2, with Corral scoring twice. American youth international Ayooluwa Oke (22) scored the first goal for Pachuca in the 12th minute—her first tally for the club. She grew up in the States in Georgia and played two years each at the University of California-Berkeley and UCLA. She joined Pachuca in January of 2025 and qualifies through parentage to play internationally for Nigeria as well as the States. Salas scored the only goal again for Atlas.
Another quarterfinal tie saw Guadalajara and UNAM Pumas of Mexico City face off. In the first leg in Guadalajara on April 24, Chivas defeated the Pumas 2-0 with second half goals by Mexican international forward Viridiana Salazar (27)—who joined Chivas for the 2023-24 Clausura in Guadalajara following five and one-half seasons at Pachuca, where she scored 74 goals in 172 regular season and playoffs matches—and Mexican international forward Alicia Cervantes (31), who has scored nine goals with El Tri Femenil (the Mexican WNT) since joining from Monterrey for the 2020-21 Apertura and is the league’s all-time leading scorer with 153 regular season and playoff goals, 13 more than Katty Martinez of Monterrey who has 140 goals. In the second leg on April 27, Cervantes scored the only goal of the match in the 69th minute and Chivas advanced to the semifinals 3-0 on aggregate over UNAM Pumas
On April 25, UANL Tigres and Monterrey have been heated city rivals for Liga MX Femenil titles over the years, with Tigres winning six titles and losing four finals while Monterrey won five league titles and finished second on two occasions; they also faced each other in the 2024 Apertura, with Monterrey winning on penalties (4-3) after a 3-3 aggregate tie.
The Monterrey derby first leg ended 1-1, with Tigres opening the scoring in the 14th minute from Lizbeth Ovalle (25), who has over 55 caps for the Mexican WNT and has scored 120 goals in 255 Liga MX Femenil games for Tigres since the 2018-19 Apertura season. Monterrey Rayadas rescued the match with a 92nd minute goal by Christina Buckenroad (31); the winger is a Mexican international who grew up in California and played in the NWSL, Norway and Czech Republic before joining Monterrey in 2020 for the Apertura, for whom she has played 191 games and scored 99 goals in Mexican league regular season and playoff matches.
On April 28, Tigres and Monterrey again ended 1-1 but Jermaine Seoposenwe (31) of South Africa scored the tying goal for Monterrey in the 92nd minute, which gave them the victory in the tie even though the aggregate scores finished 2-2, as Mexican League rules state that the higher seed advances to the next round, based on the regular season (Clausura) standings in this case. She has played for clubs in South Africa, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal and joined Monterrey for 2023-24 after a year with Juarez. Seoposenwe scored seven goals in the 2024-25 Clausura regular season. Brazilian international Jheniffer (Da Silva) (23) scored a first half goal to give Tigres the lead in the 36th minute. She joined Tigres in January of 2025 and scored seven times in 11 regular season matches.
In the semifinals on May 1, Guadalajara Chivas tied eternal rival Club America of Mexico City 2-2 at home, utilizing two second half goals by Alicia Cervantes to take a 2-1 lead with just over 15 minutes left to play, but Mexican international midfielder Nancy Antonio (29)—who joined America for the 2024-25 Apertura and, prior to her move, won six league titles with Tigres and a Pan Am Games Bronze Medal in 2015 in Toronto, Canada—rescued a share of the points with a 90th minute goal. Highly touted young Mexican WNT player at the youth and senior level—Montserrat Saldivar (18)—gave the Aguilas the lead in the 40th minute. In the return leg in Mexico City on May 4, Kiana Palacios—who was born in the U.S. and has 50 caps for Mexico—scored the winner just before halftime, while Montserrat Saldivar scored two minutes into the second half to give Club America the tie 4-2 on aggregate and send Aguilas to their fifth Championship Final in six championships (since the 2022 Apertura, winning once). Overall, America have won two titles and lost three championship matches, winning and losing once each on penalty kicks.
In the other tie in the last four, Monterrey and Pachuca faced off on May 2 and Monterrey won the first leg at home 1-0 with a goal by Dutch international defender Marel van Dongen (32), who scored the only goal just before halftime. She was on the Netherlands 2019 WWC runner-up side and has played over 60 WNT games for the Dutch side; she is in her first season with Monterrey. She played collegiately at the University of Alabama in the States, at home and for five seasons in Spain with Real Betis and Atletico Madrid.
Pachuca roared back at home on May 5 with a 4-1 win to take the tie 4-2, powered by a hat-trick by Chinwendu Ihezuo (28). Ihezuo is a full international for Nigeria and joined the Gophers for the 2023-24 Clausura; she has scored 30 goals in 60 matches (regular season and playoffs) to date after playing with Monterrey and scoring 10 games in 33 matches (regular season and playoffs). She also played in China, Kazakhstan (where she won three league titles with BIIK Kazygurt) and at home.
Pachuca has lost the league final on three previous occasions, in the Apertura 2017 and the Clausura 2022 and 2023 tournaments. The Gophers won the summer tournament in 2017 before the league started its first regular season—the 2017 Apertura. In the first leg on May 9 at the Estadio Hidalgo in Pachuca, Charlyn Corral gave the Gophers a 2-0 lead by the first 13 minutes. Argentinian international Nina Nicosia (22) scored a third goal in the 54th minute for the 3-0 win. Nicosia (22) was born in the U.S. and played at the University of Louisville—where teammate Charlyn Corral played many years before—and her father Gustavo was a former player in Argentina. This is her second season full season with Pachuca, joining for the 2023-24 Apertura, and in total has played in 60 Liga MX Femenil games. Nicosia scored seven goals in 22 regular season and playoff matches during the 2025 Clausura.
Even though Pachuca had a sizeable lead, Club America is a proud franchise with a winning tradition so a Pachuca title was not a fiat accompli. Pachuca did win its first Liga MX Femenil crown with a 2-0 defeat but a 3-2 aggregate score win on May 12 in Mexico City. Irene Guerrero (28), a midfielder who plays for Spain’s national team, and American-born Mexican international striker Scarlett Camberos (24) scored goals for America in the 35th and 54th minute respectively, it wasn’t quite enough for the Aguilas to overcome the 3-0 first leg deficit. Pachuca’s Daniela Flores received her matching orders with a second yellow card in the 61st minute but Club America rarely threatened in the last half-hour.
Guerreo, who joined America in July of 2024 from Manchester United, scored six goals in her first season at the club. American-born Mexican international Scarlett Camberos played at University of California-Irvine and in the NWSL with Angel City and Bay FC in her home state of California. With Mexico, she won a Pan Am Games Gold Medal in Chile in 2023, defeating the host side 1-0 to win the final. She had previously left American in 2023 after playing for more than a year but had faced multiple on-line harassment and stalking incidents and left for her safety, though the club didn’t want to see her go as they rated her highly. She returned this season for the 2024-25 Apertura and had 14 goals in 33 regular season and playoffs games after scoring 19 in 41 games in her first stint.
Pachuca’s goalkeeper Esthefanny Barreras (29) was named the Player of the Match after the second leg—she grew up in Arizona in the States and is a full Mexican international and joined the club in 2021—and said after the second games: “It was fundamental to have won at home. We did not come here to defend the lead, but America played great and pushed us. It's a nice and historic moment to win the first title for us.”
2025 Liga MX Femenil Clausura Top Goalscorers
Pachuca’s Charlyn Corral won the 2025 Clausura Golden Boot with 21 regular season goals. Cruz Azul’s American forward Aerial Chavarin was second with 16 goals, followed by Portuguese international Stephanie Ribeiro (of UNAM Pumas) in third with 13 goals. Mexican international Lizbeth Ovalle of UANL Tigres was fourth with 11 goals, with Costa Rican international and Atlas’s Maria Salas tied for fifth with 10 goals.
Four of the next five top goal scorers were Mexicans: Daniela Espinosa of Club America with nine goals for sixth and then four players tied on eight goals: young Mexican international phenom Montserrat Saldivar of Club America, Paola Garcia of Atlas and Christina Burkenroad of Monterrey, along with Brazilian international Priscila of Club America, who joined Aguilas for the 2024-25 Apertura (in total she scored 13 goals in 23 matches for CA this season).
Attendances for the 2025 Liga MX Femenil Clausura
The Liga MX Femenil per-game average attendance was 2,067 during the 2025 Clausura, up from 1,875 (a 10% increase) in the 2024-25 Apertura, with seven clubs above the league average:
Monterrey 7,719 (+5%)
Guadalajara 4,586 (+60%)
UANL 4,202 (-26%)
UNAM 3,738 (+84%)
Toluca 3,310 (+32%)
Pachuca 3,261 (+162%)
Club America 3,233 (+57%)
Four clubs averaged under 600 fans a games:
Santos Laguna 528 (+41%)
Puebla 441 (-47%)
Mazatlan 286 (-35%)
Cruz Azul 227 (+12%)
Puebla showed almost a 50% loss from the 2024 Apertura and needs to fix its women’s program, experiencing multiple cases of harassment of American players over the past few years and has had a hostile atmosphere in the stands, though small that their crowd is. On the men’s side, Puebla is a pleasant experience to watch a game in this high altitude city about 90 minutes from Mexico City, but the women’s team’s supporters have never been viewed as the “best fans in the world.”
On the field, Puebla finished bottom of the table in both the 2024-25 Apertura and Clausura. The club badly needs to fix things and be serious about supporting and building the side or shut it down and move the women’s side, so another city can embrace the club, which Puebla has clearly not.
Cruz Azul in Mexico City showed a gain in attendance in the spring but still are bottom of the league, playing in a wonderfully panoramic stadium but has more people dressed as empty seats than fans.
2024-25 CONCACAF W Champions Cup
In the CONCACAF W Champions Cup semifinals on May 24 in Monterrey, Gotham FC jumped off to a 3-0 lead by the 33rd minute. Geyse da Silva (27) of Brazil, who played the last two seasons at Manchester United and before that for a season at Barcelona and is closing in on 60 senior caps, scored in the 21st minute. American Midge Purce (29), who was the MVP of the 2023 NWSL Championship game that Gotham won, scored from the penalty spot in the 30th minute and Gotham was up by three goals three minutes later on an own goal by Jana Gutierrez (21).
Club America scored in the 36th minute with a goal by Spanish international Irene Guerrero (28), who played last season at Manchester City in the WSL and won the 2023 WWC title with Spain. Club America could not further reduce the deficit and ended up moving to the third place game, with Gotham advancing to the CONCACAF club final. The game was played in front of a crowd of maybe 200 people in the 42,000 seat El Volcan (UNAM’s Estadio Universitario), during which there were heavy winds and rain throughout most of the game.
In the second game, there were maybe 500 people to see the home team UANL Tigres play the Portland Thorns, for which the NWSL team’s defense never looked up to the task against Tigres. All the scoring came in the first half hour as Aaliyah Farmer (21)—who was born and raised in the U.S., played collegiately at the University of Southern California and accompanied Mexico’s WNT to the Pinatar Cup in Spain earlier this year—scored in the 10th minute and then South African international Thembi Kgatlana (29) was gifted a goal after a tremendous howler by Thorns keeper Bella Bixby (29), who has been with the club since 2019 and also played on loan early in her career in Germany and Israel. Bixby whiffed on a goal kick and Kgatlana easily scored and it really seemed that there was no way back for Portland. The game featured two teams who have won the most titles in their respective leagues—six Liga MX Femenil titles for Tigres—with three NWSL titles for Portland.
On May 24, in the third place match Portland Thorns defeated Club America 3-0. The Thorns went with a younger lineup, providing debuts to goalkeeper Morgan Messner (25) (club), rookie defender Moira Kelley (23-professional) and rookie midfielder Carissa Boeckmann (22-professional) as well as a first start of the season for midfielder Sophie Hirst (25). Boeckmann set up rookie forward Pietra Tordin (21) to open the scoring just before the end of the first half.
The Thorns doubled their lead minutes into the second half when Tordin fed forward Payton Linnehan (24), who shot into the top right corner of the goal. US international midfielder Olivia Moultrie(19) ended the scoring towards the end of the match. Caiya Hanks (20) also recorded an assist in the match, while Messner recorded her first clean sheet for the Thorns. Portland led Club America on shots (12 vs. 8), shots on target (5 vs. 2) and corner kicks (6 vs. 4).
In the championship final nightcap, between Gotham and home side UANL Tigres, the New Jersey/New York side captured the first North America/Central American/Caribbean Women’s Club Championship with a 1-0 win over Tigres. Spanish international Esther Gonzalez, late in the second half, scored on a follow-up after her penalty kick attempt was saved by Tigres goalkeeper Itzel Gonzalez, who was outstanding all game.
Itzel Gonzalez (30) made a difficult save in the second minute to deny Gotham and then deflected another penalty kick off the post late in the first half after Midge Purce was taken down in the box and stepped up herself to take the penalty attempt. Gotham thus qualified for the inaugural 2026 FIFA Women’s Champions Cup as well as the first 2028 FIFA Women’s Cup World Cup in 2028.
Itzel Gonzalez, a full Mexican international, is in her first season with UANL, after previously playing with Club America—winning the 2023 Clausura title—and Tijuana Xolos, along with a short spell on loan to Sevilla of Spain in 2022. Gotham had sizeable advantages over Tigres for shots (23 vs. 7), shots on goal (7 vs. 1), corner kicks (6 vs. 3) and time of possession (56% vs. 44%).
After the small weather restrained crowds for the semifinals, the final game attracted 17,264 fans. We expect Spanish head coach Pedro Martinez Losa (49)—who joined Tigres for the 2025 Clausura, and has coached in the NWSL as an assistant coach and a head coach with Arsenal in the WSL, in Spain, in France and with Scotland’s WNT—to return this fall as head coach.
Gotham’s Spanish coach Juan Carlos Amoros told the media after the game: “The other day, we talked about the first-ever champions of competitions like the UEFA Champions League, the Euros, the (FIFA) World Cup and the Olympics. Now, forever, the first team to win the CONCACAF W Champions Cup will be Gotham FC. These players, with this coaching staff—we are incredibly proud of what they’ve accomplished.”
NJ/NY Gotham FC won the inaugural CONCACAF W Champions Cup tournament in Monterrey, Mexico on May 24, besting home side UANL Tigres 1-0 in the final. Photo courtesy of Gotham FC.
Well done to Gotham FC in winning the first CONCACAF regional club title for women and Tigres in hosting the last four and drawing a solid, passionate crowd for the final. The NWSL now officially has bragging rights as the best league in the region but Liga MX Femenil should be proud that they sent two teams to the final four from the ten team group stage last fall.
The NWSL is a more competitive league from top to bottom, but Liga MX Femenil is competitive with the American league on their recruitment of Mexican-Americans and international talent, symbolized by Spain’s 2023 WWC winner Jenni Gonzalez of Tigres, who is an iconic symbol to girls and women around the world in fighting misogyny and abuse, along with her stellar play at (35) for Spain’s WNT and at the club level in Mexico. Mexico—like many leagues around the world—have a gap between the top teams and those outside the playoffs; this can be reduced with more resources and commitments by the clubs, who are all adjuncts to men’s side, some of whom are among the top spending teams in the Americas.
CONCACAF sets format for 2025-26 W Champions Cup
The second edition of the CONCACAF W Champions Cup in 2025-26 will feature ten teams—down from 11 in 2024-25. Pachuca, the 2024-25 Clausura champions, qualified along with Club America and 2024-25 Apertura champions Monterrey Rayadas. The trio from the NWSL are: 2025 Champions Orlando Pride, Washington Spirit and Gotham FC. Other teams are:
Canada (1): Vancouver Rise Academy
Costa Rica (1): LD Alajuelense
El Salvador (1): to be determined
Panama (1): to be determined
Next season there will be two five team first round groups, with each team playing four games from August to October 2025, with two at home and two away. The final will be played in May 2026.
2024-25 AFC Women’s Champions League Semifinals and Final
In Wuhan, China, on May 21, the home team Wuhan Jiangda (University) defeated surprise semifinalist Ho Chi Minh City of Vietnam 2-0 in front of 4,977 fans, with Wang Shuang (30)—who has over 150 caps for China and has played in the WSL with Tottenham Hotspur, in the NWSL with Racing Louisville and in France with Paris Saint-Germain—scoring in the 34th minute while Song Duan (29), who has 25 caps for China’s WNT and has played her entire career at home, scored the clinching goal in the 54th minute.
In the second game, which started two hours after the end of the Wuhan-Ho Chi Minh game, with the crowd dropping to 706, Melbourne City left it late but a 94th minute goal by 17-year-old Shelby McMahon gave City a berth in the final against the home side on May 24, after a 1-0 win over Hyundai Steel Red Angels. McMahon had replaced Laura Hughes at half-time and scored on a blistering right-foot drive into the top corner from 25 yards out in the 94th minute to send City into the final.
McMahon explained the goal: “I don’t shoot from out there—I don’t know what I was thinking. I went for it and we’ll take it. You’ve got to take the half-chances if they’re there. The girls were yelling ‘shoot!’ so trusting my teammates and trusting myself to get us across the line was the biggest, most important part.”
Making the final helps City get over the hangover of losing the league championship the week before on penalty kicks to Central Coast Mariners. McMahon added: “It’s definitely redemption, that’s for sure… It’s the first time, so proud that we can represent Australia and be the ones to give it a crack. Obviously the prize) money means a lot more to the girls in the team than it does to me at 17.” McMahon, for her part, was doing schoolwork during her time away from school. City was relieved that striker Holly McNamara was cleared to play after receiving a concussion last week in the first half of the Grand Final against Central Coast.
The final, with a $2 Million prize going to the winner, host side Wuhan Jiangda faced Melbourne City and, for the second week in a row, City lost a title challenge on penalties as Wuhan won 5-4 after six rounds of penalties, following a 1-1 tie. Teenager forward Shelby McMahon again scored City’s only goal in regulation time in the 76th minute, burying a perfect header from a free kick when about five meters away from goal. Shuang Wang tied up the match in the eighth minute of second half injury time from the penalty spot, after Venezuelan international Mariana Speckmaier was adjusted to have handled the ball in the penalty box—a harsh call from my vantage point on television.
The teams were scoreless through 30 minutes of extra time. Football Ferns international Rebecca Stott of New Zealand and Matilda Bryleeh Henry (22) failed to score on the final two penalties to give Wuhan the win. City earned $1.25 million, a nice payday for the club. Wuhan has won the last five China Women’s Super League titles in a row.
The AFC Women’s Champions League replaced the AFC Women’s Club Championship, which was held four times between 2019-2023, with four-to five teams involved in the first three tournaments and eight in 2023. Past winners have seen two from Japan—Tokyo Verdy Beleza in 2019 and Urawa Red Diamonds in 2023—with Amman SC of Jordan triumphing in 2021. In 2022, there was no final held between East region champions College of Asian Scholars of Thailand and West champions Sogdiana Jizzakh of Uzbekistan.
This column has followed this tournament since 2019 and interviewed players involved in them; previous editions were seen as a little bit more than an exhibition tournament. The advent and success of the 2024-25 AFC Champions League has taken the Asian regional club championship for women to a much higher level, and set a standard that can be duplicated in other confederations (see more below). Thirteen teams contested the Preliminary Round with the four groups held in Bhutan, Jordan, Malaysian and Saudi Arabia; the winners joined eight seeded teams in the Group Stage.
We applaud the AFC for their planning and implementation of this first federation-wide club tournament for women. Again, this column followed the tournament this year throughout and players were pleased with the competition. There were some great stories and surprises, including Bam Khatoon of Iran and Abu Dhabi Country Club of UAE—where women’s football has been played on a limited basis until recently—losing quarterfinals by one goal. Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City made the semifinals against all odds, after an absolutely enthralling 5-4 quarter final win over Abu Dhabi CC. 2024-25 champions Wuhan Jiangda advanced from the group stage as one of the best third place sides—behind Incheon Red Angels of Korea Republic and Abu Dhabi CC.
The final in Wuhan draw 18,715 to see their team win the continental title. Ideally, the last four could be held at a pre-selected location but for the first few events, one of the semifinalists hosting ensures at least backers of one of the sides are able to turn out, rather than at a pre-selected neutral site. There was no third place game for the AFC Champions League—we can go either way on that decision—but Ho Chi Minh City and Incheon can both claim to have shared third place.
Terry Engesha (27), a Kenyan international striker, led the tournament in scoring with five goals, starting with Korea Republic’s Incheon and moving to Wuhan after the group stage where the two teams, tied with Japan’s Miki Ito of Urawa Red Diamonds.
Comparing and contrasting the inaugural AFC and CONCACAF tournaments
For the AFC Women’s Champions League, other than possibly adding a third place game for the defeated semifinalists and ultimately selecting a neutral site venue in the future for the final four, I think the AFC event—for their first time—was quite well done and involved champion sides from throughout the continent. CONCACAF also held a first regional women’s club championship in 2024-25.
They had 9 teams qualify directly and two other sides played off in a qualifying game—the ten sides then were drawn into five team groups—each hosting two games and playing on the road for the other matches. The positive is that each team’s fans could see two games but the midweek games routinely drew small crowds for the first-time tournament. The semifinal, third place match and finals were set in one venue (Monterrey). The AFC plan utilized one champion from each nation whereas Mexico and the U.S. supplied six of the ten group teams along with one team each from Canada, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Panama (Alianza of El Salvador lost 1-0 to Whitecaps FC Girls Elite of Canada in the Preliminary playoff found).
For 2025-26, there will only be 10 entrants, from the same countries as in 2024-25, with the exception of El Salvador replacing Jamaica—whose Frazsiers Whip team was lambasted, finishing with 0 points and scoring only one goal while allowing 30 goals in four games. Teams and nations have to meet CONCACAF requirements to participate, which is fine, but the tournament is restricted currently to six countries for a Confederation that has 41 members. We understand that—in this region—the top professional clubs are in Mexico and the States; there’s no argument as they are clearly ahead in resources, budgets and the fan base. CONCACAF nations do cover a vast region—from Canada, Central America, the Caribbean—including Guyana and Surinam on the northern edge of the continent of South America.
The AFC model involved 21 nations across Asia (with 46 total members), while CONCACAF only involves six countries in 2025-26. We would like to see more nations involved and teams from Jamaica (granted which struggled in this first tournament), Trinidad and Tobago and developing nations for women’s football such as Bermuda, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Puerto Rico and Surinam in the Caribbean and Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua in Central America.
We are convinced that national teams build awareness but top tier women’s leagues in each nation build the development base. CONCACAF can stay with 10 or even 12 teams in the group stage, but we would like to see them add a preliminary round of regional playoffs held at one site (like the AFC did in their first round), which could involve the following regional groups for example:
Bahamas/Turks and Caicos/British Virgin Islands/U.S. Virgina Islands
Cuba/Dominican Republic/Puerto Rico and even Haiti if the turmoil on the island settles down
Cayman Islands/Jamaica/St. Vincent and the Grenadines/St. Lucia/Trinidad and Tobago
Barbados/Guyana/Surinam
Aruba/Bonaire/Curacao
Belize/Guatemala/Honduras/Nicaragua
We know travel is expensive in the region but, if it can be done on a localized basis with one or two teams from these groups advancing to the group stage, that will help develop the women’s club game in these nations and boost it within CONCACAF.
U-17 WWC Finalists are set
The ninth edition of the U-17 WWC will be held from 17 October to 8 November 2025 in Morocco, with all matches held in Rabat. The twenty-four finalists, in the first tournament expanded to 24 teams, are:
AFC
China PR
Japan
Korea DPR
Korea Republic
CAF
Cameroon
Côte d'Ivoire
Morocco (host)
Nigeria
Zambia
CONCACAF
Canada
Costa Rica
Mexico
USA
CONMEBOL
Brazil
Colombia
Ecuador
Paraguay
OFC
New Zealand
Samoa
UEFA
France
Italy
Netherlands
Norway
Spain
Tim Grainey is a contributor to Tribal Football. His latest book Beyond Bend it Like Beckham on the global game of women’s football. Get your copy today. Follow Tim on X: @TimGrainey