The

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

(Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football)

qualification Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

stage for the

2010 FIFA World Cup The 2010 FIFA World Cup was the 19th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for List of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams. It took place in South Africa from 11 June to 11 July 2010. ...

South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...

consisted of 35 national teams competing for the three berths given automatically to CONCACAF by

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

. The

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and

Honduras Honduras, officially the Republic of Honduras, is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the west by Guatemala, to the southwest by El Salvador, to the southeast by Nicaragua, to the south by the Pacific Ocean at the Gulf of Fonseca, ...

qualified. The fourth-place finisher,

Costa Rica Costa Rica, officially the Republic of Costa Rica, is a country in Central America. It borders Nicaragua to the north, the Caribbean Sea to the northeast, Panama to the southeast, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest, as well as Maritime bo ...

, played a two-game playoff with the

CONMEBOL CONMEBOL ( ) or CSF (; ; ), is the continental governing body of football in South America and it is one of FIFA's six continental confederations. The oldest continental confederation in the world, its headquarters are located in Luque, Parag ...

fifth-place finisher,

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

, for a possible fourth berth.

Format

For the first three rounds, a three group structure was created that spanned all three rounds. Each of the three groups had four sub-groups, with the winners of the 12 sub-groups advancing to the third round. The first and second rounds reduced the 35 entrants to 24 and 12 teams, respectively. The remaining 12 teams were then placed into three third-round groups of four based on the preliminary draw, with the top two teams in each group advancing to the fourth and final qualification group. The top three teams from the fourth round group of six (held from February to October 2009) qualified for the

. The fourth-placed team competed in a home-and-away playoff against the 5th-place team from

Seeding

The draw for the first three rounds took place on 25 November 2007 in

Durban Durban ( ; , from meaning "bay, lagoon") is the third-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg and Cape Town, and the largest city in the Provinces of South Africa, province of KwaZulu-Natal. Situated on the east coast of South ...

, and it determined paths into each of the 12 slots of the three third round groups. In addition, because second round winners are paired off for the third round, the top 13 seeds were subdivided as follows: * Pot A: The top 3 teams, who would be top seeds of each third round group. * Pot B: The next 3 teams, who would be the seconds seeds of the third round groups. * Pot C: The next 6 teams, who would receive a bye to the second round, and would not be drawn against a Pot A or Pot B team in that round. * Pot D: St. Vincent and the Grenadines, who also receive a bye in the first round, but would be paired against one of the top 12 teams in Round 2. In the second round, the 13 top-ranked CONCACAF teams from the May 2007 FIFA World Ranking joined 11 winners from the first round.

First round

The 22 teams ranked 14 to 35 competed in the first round. Teams ranked 14th–24th were randomly drawn against teams ranked 25th–35th. Teams played home and away against their opponents, except three ties: Puerto Rico–Dominican Republic, Grenada–U.S. Virgin Islands and Montserrat–Suriname, which were played over one leg in late March due to several Member Associations failing to meet the new FIFA Stadium standards and being unable to secure a home venue.New World fixtures firmed
FIFA; 11 January 2008. The winners advanced to the second round. ;Group 1 ;Group 2 ;Group 3

Second round

In the second round, the 11 first round winners joined the 13 teams which received a bye to the second round. Teams ranked 1st–12th were randomly drawn against the unseeded teams (the 11 first round winners plus

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, sometimes known simply as Saint Vincent or SVG, is an island country in the eastern Caribbean. It is located in the southeast Windward Islands of the Lesser Antilles, which lie in the West Indies, at the south ...

, which was ranked 13th). Teams played home and away against their opponents and the winners advanced to the next round. Matches took place in June 2008. ;Group 1 ;Group 2 ;Group 3

Third round

The winners from the second round were placed into three groups of four teams, where they played a double round robin home and away schedule. The top two teams from each group advanced to the fourth round.

Group 1

Group 2

Group 3

Fourth round

The six teams that reached the fourth round formed one double-round-robin, home-and-away group nicknamed the "Hexagonal." The top three teams qualified for the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The fourth place team qualified for a home-and-away

play-off The playoffs, play-offs, postseason or finals of a sports league are a competition played after the regular season by the top competitors to determine the league champion or a similar accolade. Depending on the league, the playoffs may be eith ...

against the fifth-place team from

. The allocation of teams in the draw took place in

Johannesburg Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu language, Zulu and Xhosa language, Xhosa: eGoli ) (colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, Jo'burg or "The City of Gold") is the most populous city in South Africa. With 5,538,596 people in the City of Johannesburg alon ...

on 22 November 2008.CONCACAF Final Round Qualifying Draw to Take Place on Nov. 22 in Johannesburg
, U.S. Soccer.

Inter-confederation play-offs

The 4th place team played the 5th place team from the CONMEBOL (South American Zone) Qualification in a home and away play-off. The winner of this play-off qualified for the

. The draw for the order in which the two matches were played was held on 2 June 2009 during the FIFA Congress in Nassau,

the Bahamas The Bahamas, officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic and island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean. It contains 97 per cent of the archipelago's land area and 88 per cent of ...

.Intercontinental play-off dates confirmed
The CONCACAF side played the first leg at home.

Qualified teams

The following three teams from CONCACAF qualified for the final tournament. :

¹ Bold indicates champions for that year. ''Italic'' indicates hosts for that year.

Top goalscorers

Below are full goalscorer lists for each round: *

First round First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

Second round The second (symbol: s) is a unit of time derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes, and finally to 60 seconds each (24 × 60 × 60 = 86400). The current and formal definition in the International System of Un ...

Third round Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

Fourth round Fourth or the fourth may refer to: * the ordinal form of the number 4 * ''Fourth'' (album), by Soft Machine, 1971 * Fourth (angle), an ancient astronomical subdivision * Fourth (music), a musical interval * ''The Fourth'', a 1972 Soviet drama ...

Notes

References

External links

North, Central America & Caribbean Zone
at FIFA.com {{FIFA World Cup 2010 Qualifiers

FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the name is ...