Photo: Paul Rudderow
The Philadelphia Union and US Soccer announced today the PPL Park will host the semifinal, third place, and championship games for the CONCACAF qualification tournament for the 2015 Women’s World Cup.
Union CEO Nick Sakiewicz said, “Having world class women’s soccer right here in Philadelphia ahead of next year’s FIFA Women’s World Cup in Canada is massive for the fans of this city to get a first look at our Federation’s best female players. For the players, we hope to provide an authentic experience from one of the premier soccer specific venues in the country.”
The first round of the qualification tournament will consist of doubleheaders at Sporting Park in Kansas City (Oct. 15-16), Toyota Park in Bridgeview, Illinois (Oct. 17-18) and RFK Stadium in Washington, DC (Oct. 20-21). Each participating team will play one game at each of the first round venues, which are located in cities that are the homes of NWSL teams.
The semifinals will take place at PPL Park on Friday, Oct. 24, followed by the third place and championship games on Sunday, Oct. 26.
The top three teams in the tournament will qualify for the World Cup, which will be hosted by Canada and will take place June 6-July 5, 2015.
With Canada automatically qualifying as host of the World Cup tournament, participating teams will include the USA, Mexico, Costa Rica, and Guatemala. The four semifinalists of the Caribbean Football Union’s Women’s Caribbean Cup, which will take place Aug. 19-26 in Trinidad & Tobago, will also participate in the CONCACAF qualification tournament.
“This tournament provides fans with another opportunity to see some of the best women’s soccer players in the world compete on the international level,” said US Soccer president Sunil Gulati. “With the tremendous success and popularity of the men’s World Cup here in the United States this summer, we are looking forward to carrying that momentum right through to the Women’s World Cup in Canada and beyond.”
How has no one said, “Hell yeah!!” about this yet?!
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This is tremendous news!
Cuz….it’s not the USMNT.
I’m goin’
hell yeah!
I said Hell Yeah, just not here. First thing I did was text my wife to mark those dates on our calendar as booked.
I did the exact same thing! Now to hope that Union STH get an early presale so we can get good seats. (I’m a former US Soccer Supporter but gave that up when they started charging ridiculous amounts to be in the upper tier and get better benefits.)
Hell yeah and then some. I’ll be there.
Have they given any indication as to the start times for the games? On the one hand, I’d rather it be after work on Friday but on the other, it will be a tough turnaround to play Friday night and then again Sunday afternoon, especially for the 3rd place game which is the more important one on Sunday.
Yeah, that short turn around occurred to me too – seems odd, but then they do that sort of turn around for lower division teams like Harrisburg.
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Start times, though, is a good question. With Friday night games, how late do they want the second game to start? Would they do 6:30 and 9?
Super excited to catch USNT match in our local market!