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 ...

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 ...

for the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for list of men's national association football teams, men's national Association football, football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil fr ...

consisted of four rounds of competition, in which the 35 member nations competed for three automatic berths at the finals in Brazil. 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 ...

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 ...

, 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,

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 ...

, played a two-game series against

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

, the first-placed team from

Oceania Oceania ( , ) is a region, geographical region including Australasia, Melanesia, Micronesia, and Polynesia. Outside of the English-speaking world, Oceania is generally considered a continent, while Mainland Australia is regarded as its co ...

and qualified to the Finals.

Format

In March 2011, following news that CONCACAF would not receive four spots in the 2014 World Cup, officials within CONCACAF indicated that the first format proposed would be revised. Several days later, officials within CONCACAF announced the qualifying format they would present to FIFA. The proposed format, which was subsequently accepted by FIFA, consists of 4 stages. #Round One. Teams ranked 26–35 will play-off to reduce the number of entrants to 30. #Round Two. 6 groups of 4 teams. This round includes the 5 qualifiers from the preliminary round plus teams ranked 7–25. The top team in each group advances to the next stage. #Round Three (Semifinal round). 3 groups of 4. Teams ranked 1–6 face off against the 6 group winners from the previous round. The top two in each group advance. #Round Four (Hexagonal). The top two teams in each group from the semifinal round compete in one group of 6. The top three teams advance to the World Cup finals, while the 4th place team advances to an intercontinental play-off.

Entrants

All 35 FIFA-affiliated national teams from CONCACAF entered qualification. The seeding – used to draw the first three rounds of the qualifiers – was based on the

FIFA World Rankings The FIFA Men's World Ranking is a ranking system for men's national teams in association football, first introduced in December 1992. The men's teams of the member nations of FIFA, football's world governing body, are ranked based on their gam ...

of March 2011. (World rankings shown in parentheses)

Schedule

The schedule of the competition was as follows. The inter-confederation play-off between the fourth-placed team from CONCACAF (Mexico) and the winning team from OFC (New Zealand) was played between 13 and 20 November 2013.

First round

The first round of the CONCACAF qualifiers saw the bottom 10 teams being paired up into five home-and-away series, with the highest ranked team facing the lowest ranked team and so on. The winners of these series proceeded to the second round. The matchups were announced by FIFA on 26 April 2011. Early indications were that the matches would be played on 3 and 7 June 2011; However, the matches were postponed to scattered days in June and July, between 15 June and 17 July. The 5 winners (in bold, below) advanced to the

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 ...

of the CONCACAF qualifiers: Belize, Dominican Republic, U.S. Virgin Islands, Saint Lucia, and the Bahamas. The two wins for the U.S. Virgin Islands were their first two ever in World Cup play, with their only other win prior to this coming in 1998. *Note 1: Order of legs reversed from originally published draw.

Second round

In the second round, the teams ranked 7–25 were joined by the 5 winners from the first round. These teams were drawn into six groups of four teams, at the World Cup Preliminary Draw at the Marina da Glória in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro, or simply Rio, is the capital of the Rio de Janeiro (state), state of Rio de Janeiro. It is the List of cities in Brazil by population, second-most-populous city in Brazil (after São Paulo) and the Largest cities in the America ...

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

on 30 July 2011. The matches were played from 2 September to 15 November 2011. The top team from each group advanced to the third round.

Seeding

Teams were seeded into four pots – designated Pots 4 to 7 in the draw. Pot 4 included teams ranked 7–12, Pot 5 teams ranked 13–18, Pot 6 teams ranked 19–24, and Pot 7 the team ranked 25 along with the 5 first round winners. ^† First round winners

Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

* withdrew from the tournament on 19 August 2011 and were not replaced.

Group D

Group E

Group F

Third round

The third round saw the top 6 seeds joined by the 6 group winners from the second round. These teams were drawn into three groups of four teams, at the World Cup Preliminary Draw at the Marina da Glória in

on 30 July 2011. These matches were played from 8 June to 16 October 2012. The top two teams from each group advanced to the fourth round.

Seeding

As the draw for the third round was held before the previous matches were held, only the six teams with byes to the round were known at the time of the draw. Teams were seeded into three pots, with Pot 1 containing the top 3 seeds, Pot 2 seeds 4 to 6, and Pot 3 the 6 group winners from the second round. Each third round group contains one team from Pot 1, one team from Pot 2 and two teams from Pot 3. ^† Second round winners whose identity was not known at the time of the draw

Groups

Group A

Group B

Group C

Fourth round

In the fourth round, the three group winners and three runners-up from the third round competed in a double round robin, including a home and away match against the other five teams between 6 February and 15 October 2013. The round is informally referred to as the 'Hexagonal' or just 'The Hex'. The draw for 'The Hex' was conducted by FIFA on 7 November 2012. The top three teams qualified directly for the 2014 FIFA World Cup finals, while the fourth-placed team, Mexico, played a home-away series against

, the winner of Oceania qualifying. Teams are ranked first by total points in all games, then, if tied, by best goal differential in all games, then by total goals in all games. If still tied, the same criteria are applied to games among the tied teams.

Inter-confederation play-offs

The winner of the OFC qualification tournament,

, played against CONCACAF's fourth-placed team,

, in a home-and-away play-off.

, the winner of this play-off, qualified for the 2014 FIFA World Cup. The first leg was played on 13 November 2013 in

Mexico City Mexico City is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Mexico, largest city of Mexico, as well as the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North America. It is one of the most important cultural and finan ...

, and the second leg was played on 20 November 2013 in

Wellington Wellington is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the third-largest city in New Zealand (second largest in the North Island ...

Qualified teams

The following four 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 ...

References

External links

Results and schedule (FIFA.com version)Results and schedule (CONCACAF.com version)
{{FIFA World Cup 2014 Qualifiers

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 ...

FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)