Mexico You already know your rivals for the second edition of the Concacaf Nations Leaguewhich will be played between June 2022 and June 2023. After the draw ceremony to define the order of Leagues A, B and C, held on April 4, the tricolor team will face Jamaica and Suriname during the group stage of League A, which is considered the highest ranked division.
The group stage will take place between June 2022 and March 2023. Mexico will have to play four games, two at home plus their respective visits to Jamaica and Surinam. In League A there are a total of four groups with three teams each; the leaders will qualify for the Finals that will be played in June 2023 for the search for the title.
The Nations League is a tournament that emerged in confederations such as Concacaf and UEFA (Europe) since 2018 so that its member teams have activity with official matches within the months in which there are no World Cup qualifiers or qualifying for continental tournaments (Gold Cup and European Championship). In this way, the goal of the FIFA it is to encourage leaving behind friendly matches with a low level of sports and audience to generate a more competitive show.
The format of the competition Concacaf It consists of dividing the 41 teams into three leagues: A, B and C, with A being the highest ranking and C the lowest. The 12 best-ranked teams in the FIFA access directly to League A, the subsequent 16 go to League B and the last 13 participate in League C. At the end of each edition, the best teams in Leagues B and C have the right to be promoted to Leagues A and B , respectively; on the contrary, the worst fall in category.
Mexico was runner-up in the first edition of the Nations League, which took place between September 2018 and June 2021. On that occasion they had to play the group stage against Panama and Bermuda, winning all four of their games to access the Finals, where beat Costa Rica in the semifinals but fell to the United States by a tight 3-2 scoreline.
Not only because of their runner-up tag, but because they are currently ranked 9th in the FIFA world ranking, Mexico automatically qualified for the Concacaf Nations League 2022-23 as the best seed, that is, located in League A together with the United States, Canada, Costa Rica, Panama, Jamaica, El Salvador, Honduras, Martinique, Curacao, Suriname and Granada. It should be noted that El Salvador, Jamaica, Granada and Suriname obtained their promotion from League B.
Being positioned in Pot 1 of League A along with the United States, Canada and Costa Rica, Mexico avoided playing these matches in the group stage. Already in the draw, in which the person in charge of drawing the spheres was the recently retired forward of the Mexican team, Oribe Peralta, El Tri defined its destiny against Jamaica as representative of pot 2 and Suriname as representative of pot 3.
Within League A, the group leader will access the Finals for the fight for the title and will also obtain a direct ticket to the 2023 Gold Cup. The second place in each group will only obtain a pass to the Gold Cup, while the third and last place will be relegated to League B for the next edition of the Nations League.
The other groups of League A were integrated as follows: Costa Rica, Panama and Martinique in group B; Canada, Honduras and Curaçao in group C; while the United States, El Salvador and Granada are the members of group D.
Mexico has just faced Jamaica during the Concacaf Octagonal Final heading to the 2022 Qatar World Cup, winning 2-1 at the Azteca stadium in September and by the same score, but as a visitor to Kingston in January.
For its part, it has only faced Suriname once during the Concacaf pre-world championship heading to Argentina 1978. It was on October 15, 1977 when Mexico defeated that team 8-1 at the Monterrey University Stadium.