Lady Jags to open campaign against Antigua

The Lady Jaguars
The Lady Jaguars

The Lady Jaguars will open their group ‘A’ campaign in League of the Concacaf W Gold Cup Qualifiers on September 20th away to Antigua and Barbuda.

This was confirmed following the official release of the September fixtures by the regional association. The Guyanese will face off against the ‘Benna Girls, before hosting Dominica four days later in their second encounter of the pool. The other team in the group is Suriname.

The other pools are Group B: El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Martinique; and Group C: Dominican Republic, Ber-muda, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados.

Meanwhile, League A comprises the highest-ranked teams in the region. They are Group A: Mexico, Trinidad and Tobago, and Puerto Rico; Group B: Canada or Jamaica, Panama, and Guatemala; and Group C: Costa Rica, Haiti, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

On the other hand, League C features 14 of the lowest-seeded teams in the confederation. They are Group A: Belize, Aruba, Turks and Caicos Islands, and Bonaire; Group B: Cuba, Saint Lucia, Guadeloupe, and Sint Maarten; Group C: US Virgin Islands, Grenada, and Bahamas; and Group D: Curacao, Cayman Islands, and Anguilla.

The event will serve as the qualifiers for the inaugural 2023 Road to the W Gold Cup and will occur during the FIFA Women’s International Window in September, October, and November of this year.

After home and away group stage matches within each league, the respective winner of each League A section (three teams) will qualify for the 2024 W Gold Cup Group Stage. The second-place finishers in each of the League A groups (three teams) and the winner of each League B pool (three teams) will progress to the preliminary stage of the 2024 W Gold Cup (six teams in total).

The inaugural W Gold Cup will occur from February 17th – March 10th, 2024 in the United States. According to CONCACAF, the two teams that will contest the 2024 Olympic Games Football Tournament, the United States and either Jamaica or Canada, will not have to play in the W Gold Cup qualifiers.