This week we look at the schedule for the upcoming CONCACAF Olympic Games Final Qualification Tournament for eight teams early in the New Year, with the United States, Canada and Jamaica, who all participated in the 2019 Women's World Cup in France, participating along with surprise team St. Kitts and Nevis. We talk to their American coach in depth about her role and long-term hopes for the nation's women's football program. We also examine the recent announcement in the change of the tournament format for the UEFA Women's Champions League to start with the 2021-22 season.

St. Kitts and Nevis advance to the Olympic Games Final Qualification Round for CONCACAF

Recently we wrote about the CONCACAF and CAF qualifiers for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo (https://www.tribalfootball.com/articles/the-week-in-women-s-football-upsets-in-caf-olympic-games-qualifiers-concacaf-regionals-uefa-champions-league-knockout-rounds-4301784). St. Kitts and Nevis was a huge surprise as a qualifier out of the Caribbean region for the CONCACAF Final Round of the 2020 Olympic Games in January/February 2020. The other two teams to advance from the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) were 2019 Women's World Cup Finalists Jamaica and 2018 U-20 Women's World Cup Finalists Haiti. This is the first time that St. Kitts and Nevis' women's team had advanced so far in a CONCACAF tournament. In Group A, St. Kitts and Nevis Sugar Girlz scored 20 goals and allowed only 2, compiling 10 points in four games and advancing over the Dominican Republic (8 points), Trinidad and Tobago (7 points), Antigua and Barbuda (3 points) and Aruba (0 points). In the first match of the group, St. Kitts and the Dominican Republic—the latter a team that has improved within the Caribbean Football Union of late—tied 0-0 on September 30. St Kitts shocked the host Trinidad and Tobago side 4-1 on October 6, and T&T then tied the Dominican Republic 0-0 on October 8. Trinidad and Tobago still continues to flounder after narrowly missing out on a Women's World Cup inter-Confederation play-in spot with Ecuador in 2015 amid continuing turmoil at the federation and coaching level.

Tribal Football.com talked to St. Kitts and Nevis' head coach, American Jene' [JE-NE] Baclawski. She is a part-time coach to the St. Kitts and Nevis's federation and a full-time technical Director for the South Texas Soccer Association and has a USSF A License, the highest level available in the States.

Baclawski explained how she was approached by the St. Kitts and Nevis Football Federation. She said that they [St. Kitts and Nevis Football Federation], "knew that they wanted to bring in a female role model. The federation does not have the budget to have an exact match of the structure that they have for the men's program. They wanted to bring in someone to help provide direction and improve the women's side of the game, [to] help not just for the top senior team but for all the women, [including] youth program direction." Incredibly, Baclawski first met her players (or anyone in person) from the SKN Federation only six days before the CFU regional qualifying tournament group stage in Trinidad and Tobago a few months ago. The key result was a 4-1 victory over the hosts T&T on October 6, 2019 that was a revenge match for her team. In the Women's World Cup Qualifying Round last year, St. Kitts and Nevis were tied on points entering the game in May 25, 2018 and Trinidad and Tobago cancelled out St. Kitts and Nevis's lead in the 89^th minute, ultimately knocking them out of the next round on goal difference. T&T finished with an 8 point goal advantage (+26 to +18) as both nations had 10 points, which meant that T&T earned the ticket to the final round of regional World Cup Qualifying in Jamaica. Baclawski explained, "I don't think Trinidad knew what was coming. That was the easiest game to prepare them for because they were ready, they wanted revenge…As soon as I saw them step out on the field for warmups, I knew we were going to have a good game; there was no nervousness, they were ready to go at it." St. Kitts built a 3-0 halftime lead and was firmly in control throughout, finishing with a 4-1 victory.

Baclawski has an incredibly young team, with a majority of her players under the age of 20. She talked about her two Canadian-born teenager sisters, Cloey (born in 2002) and Kayla Uddenberg, who both play youth ball with the Aurora Soccer Club in Ontario. Kayla was born in 2005 and was brought up from their U-15 national side at the time and had significant playing time in the Trinidad and Tobago tournament. Baclawski said about the youthfulness of her side, "It will be a strength for the future but right now it is a challenge." Haiti has gone through the same developmental phase, particularly when Shek Borkowski was their head coach, using a number of teenagers to start when they played the U.S. in Detroit and Birmingham in September of 2015. He had such difficulties keeping players involved in the sport once they were in their early 20's, mostly from pressure from family and friends to get a full-time job or start a family, that he focused on the development of his U-20's, U-17 and U-15's. In 2018, Haiti reached the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup Finals in France, doing quite credibly and much better than fellow CONCACAF sides Mexico and the U.S.; their high-scoring forward Nerilia Mondesir has continued on with her career with Montpellier in the French top league, now playing in her fourth season as a professional.

Baclawski talked about using diaspora (players from abroad, usually those who were not born at home) to boost her side, a practice common in the Caribbean and with other developing nations in women's soccer, "We cannot do wholesale importing of the diaspora. It cannot be that. What makes St Kitts unique is it is a tiny island (57,000 population with Nevis—the smallest independent state in the Western Hemisphere) with more citizens living outside of the island." Therefore, she wants to prioritize the development of the women's league at home, which is vital so that SKN does not have to rely primarily on their diaspora. The local Elvis Star Brown W-League started on November 21 with 8 teams and includes a U-14 girls Cup and U-20 Women's cup as well.

Baclawski discussed the upcoming regional qualifiers for a spot in the Olympic Games when she said, "I don't know how the next round will go. We will have a good experience, we will learn some great things and we will represent the Caribbean and CONCACAF well but the goal for us is much greater and longer term than just February. We're looking at what can happen four years from now if I'm able to come in and help and we do things the right way, could we be potentially qualifying for the next World Cup? That's really where we want to go with it and I think it's very feasible as well when you think of the young players that we have."

St. Kitts will face stiff competition in January of 2020, with Canada, Mexico and Jamaica in their first round group. Beyond performances on the field, the true success of this campaign for Baclawski and her team will be how well the federation supports the women's team moving ahead at all levels—including further investment in the local women's league—and if they grow into a regional force in the years to come.

CONCACAF Olympic Games Qualifying Tournament Final Schedule

In November, the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) announced that Houston, Texas, Edinburg, Texas, and Los Angeles, California will host the 2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament. The competition with eight teams will take place from January 28 to February 9, 2020.

The groups for the 2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying tournament are as follows:

The 2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying tournament will kick off with an initial group stage between January 28 and February 4. Group A matches will take place at the BBVA Stadium, in Houston, Texas on January 28, 31, and February 3. Group B matches are set for January 29, and February 1 and 4, at the HEB Park, in Edinburg, Texas, near the Mexican border.

After group stage round-robin play the top two finishers from each group will move on to the semifinals. The two semifinal matches, which will determine the two qualified teams to the Olympics, will be played on Friday, February 7, at the Dignity Health Sports Park, in Los Angeles. The final match, between the semifinal winners, will also be played in Los Angeles on Sunday, February 9.

In the previous edition of the CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament, hosted in Houston and Frisco Texas, in 2016, the United States topped Canada 2-0 in the final, earning its 4th straight title.

2020 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Games Qualifying Tournament Schedule

*Kick off times to be confirmed and order of the matches subject to change
Tuesday, January 28, 2020 – BBVA Stadium, Houston, TX
Costa Rica vs Panama
USA vs Haiti
Wednesday, January 29, 2020 – HEB Park, Edinburg, TX
Mexico vs Jamaica
Canada vs Saint Kitts and Nevis
Friday, January 31, 2020 – BBVA Stadium, Houston, TX
Haiti vs Costa Rica
Panama vs USA
Saturday, February 1, 2020 – HEB Park, Edinburg, TX
Saint Kitts and Nevis vs Mexico
Jamaica vs Canada
Monday, February 3, 2020 – BBVA Stadium, Houston, TX
Panama vs Haiti
USA vs Costa Rica
Tuesday, February 4, 2020 – HEB Park, Edinburg, TX
Jamaica vs Saint Kitts and Nevis
Canada vs Mexico
Friday, February 7, 2020 – Dignity Health Sports Park, Los Angeles, CA
SF1: 1B vs 2A
SF2: 1A vs 2B
Sunday, February 9, 2020 – Dignity Health Sports Park, Los Angeles, CA
F: Winner SF1 vs Winner SF2

UEFA Women's Champions League—New Format to start for 2021-22

The UEFA Women's Champions League has altered its format for 2021-22 season including a 16-team group stage as well as centralized marketing and TV coverage. The change means a 20% increase in the number of matches, or a 39% increase excluding the first round which is played in the form of mini-tournaments, and gives the tournament more competitive games and increased visibility and quality. A key change is that the current knockout round of 16 will be replaced by a group stage, with four groups of four teams playing each other home and away. The top two in each group progress to the quarter-finals.

The top-six ranked associations (as per the Women's Association Club Coefficients at the start of the previous season, i.e. summer 2020 for 2021/22) will each enter three teams, the associations ranked seven to 16 will each enter two. All other associations have the chance to enter one team, being their domestic champion as before.

The group stage would be preceded by two rounds, split into champions and league paths (as in the men's UEFA Champions League) to ensure at least ten associations are represented in the group stage, Round 1 will be played as knockout mini-tournaments with a semi-final, a third-place match and a final while Round 2 is played as home-and-away ties.

Currently only the final is centrally marketed by UEFA, with the home sides responsible for all earlier rounds. In the new format and agreement, the media rights will be centralized from the group stage onwards, with UEFA producing every game for TV or online streaming purposes. Sponsorship rights will be partially centralized for UEFA women's football partners from the group stage.

This news is so important in that it hopefully will drive further improvement in the UEFA women's club scene beyond the top eight-to-ten powers—such as Olympique Lyon and Paris St. Germain of France, Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea in England, Bayern Munich and Wolfsburg in Germany and Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in Spain. These changes will expand the number of teams and players involved each season in the WCL and increase general visibility. The UEFA Champions League is seen as a goal destination by players in other regions of the world—including North America, Asia and Africa. Sam Kerr recently left Chicago Red Stars for Chelsea in part to have a chance to play in the WCL. More and more Americans are going to Europe to play even for smaller clubs in Eastern Europe to at least get a chance to play three games in the Women's Champions League Preliminary Round and get a chance to be noticed by a larger club in Europe. The next step for the club game would be for FIFA to launch a fully Women's World Cup Club, which we hope is not far off, particularly as the Asian Football Federation started a four team AFC Women's Club Championship tournament last month, which we will review next week along with our Australian W-League mid-season review (as Melbourne Victory represented Australia).

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 Twitter: @TimGrainey