CONCACAF women's Olympic qualifiers set to get under way

By David Gold

January 16 – The Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) women’s qualifying tournament for the London 2012 Games gets underway in Canada on Thursday (January 19), with eight teams vying for two places at this summer’s Olympics.

Costa Rica, who won all their pre-qualification games, and Cuba kick off the qualifying at BC Place in Vancouver, with Canada taking on Haiti later in the opening Group A games.

Canada, who will also be holding the 2015 Women’s World Cup, will be among the favourites to qualify as the hosts of the tournament, which follows their success in the 2011 Pan American Games, where they beat Brazil in the final on penalties.

However, that followed a disastrous World Cup, where they finished bottom of their group and crashed out having scored just one goal and without gaining a single point, leading to the sacking of coach Carolina Morace, subsequently replaced by John Herdman.

Cuba will be confident of springing a shock, and will hope that Yesenia Martinez can repeat her superb form in the pre-qualifying tournament, where she scored five times.

The Costa Ricans will also be optimistic having been prolific at the Pan American Games, and will be favourites to join Canada in the last four having reached the 2010 Gold Cup semi-finals, emerging from a tricky group where they finished ahead of Haiti and Guatemala.

In Group B, the United States, including Abby Wambach (pictured), who have won three of the four Olympic gold medals in women’s football, and Mexico, who finished third at the Pan American Games, go head-to-head, with the Americans hoping to get revenge for a defeat to their rivals in the 2011 World Cup qualifiers.

The 2-1 defeat to Mexico in the 2010 Gold Cup, which acted as a World Cup qualifier, meant that the US failed to reach the final of the tournament for the first time, as well as meaning that they missed out on the Pan American Games.

The US are also looking to bounce back after a penalty shoot out defeat to Japan in the final of the 2011 Women’s World Cup in Germany.

They face each other in the final round of group games, which should be crucial, as the team finishing second in the group is likely to face the hosts.

The duo are joined by the Dominican Republic and Guatemala, the last team to book a place at the qualifying tournament, to make it to the semi-finals.

Guatemala will hope familiarity pays off with over half of their squad playing for the same club team, and coach Raul Calderon will be aiming to shock the group favourites.

The top two in each group make it to the final four, and the winner of those two semi-finals will secure their place in London later this year.

The tournament concludes on January 29, with all matches taking place in Vancouver.

Of those bidding to qualify, only the US, Canada and Mexico have previously competed at an Olympics in the women’s tournament.

The two finalists will join France, Sweden, hosts Great Britain, Japan, North Korea, South Africa, Cameroon, Brazil and Colombia at the London Games this summer.

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