By Canadian Press

Canada learns opponents for revamped 2022 World Cup qualifying

Aug 19, 2020 | 12:46 PM

ZURICH — Canada learned its new path to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on Wednesday as FIFA held the draw for the latest CONCACAF qualifying method.

Under the three-round system developed after the COVID-19 pandemic scrubbed a previous qualifying system, Canada will be the top seed in Group B with Suriname, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Aruba.

Canada, ranked 73rd in the world, is well ahead of the next highest team in the group — 141st-ranked Suriname.

Each team will play every other team in their group once, playing a total of four matches — two home and two away. These games are scheduled to be played in the October and November FIFA match windows.

The winner of each of the six groups advances to the second round, which features three home-and-home series in March 2021.

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The winner of Canada’s group will face the Group E winner. That group’s top-seeded team is Haiti. The other teams are Nicaragua, Belize, St. Lucia and Turks and Caicos.

If Canada plays Haiti, it will be a rematch of last year’s Gold Cup quarterfinal when Haiti recorded a 3-2 upset.

Haiti is ranked 86th.

The three home-and-home series winners will join the region’s top five teams — Mexico, the United States, Costa Rica, Jamaica and Honduras — in the final round.

The final eight teams will play each other home and away, with each side playing 14 matches. The final round will start in the June 2021 FIFA window and continue in match windows of September, October, November 2021 and January and March 2022.

The top three teams will qualify directly to the 2022 World Cup. The fourth-placed country will qualify for the FIFA intercontinental playoff scheduled for June 2022.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on August 19, 2020.

The Canadian Press