2022 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup: When does the US team play?
The 2022 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup is already underway. The US, three-time winners, open their campaign against Ghana.
The 2022 FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup is underway with the first four opening matches already concluded. The United States, who won the inaugural tournament in 2002 and were proclaimed world champions again in 2008 and 2012, are in Group D along with the Netherlands, Ghana and title holders, Japan.
US coach Tracey Kevins has taken 21 players to Costa Rica for the tournament - 18 of them are either college students or enrolling this fall plus one youth club player and two professional players - Jaedyn Shaw and Olivia Moultrie, the most professionals ever for a US team at a FIFA youth Women’s World Cup. Kevins, who has been a member of US Soccer’s youth coaching staff since 2017, was appointed U20s coach in October last year. She will be aiming to guide her team past the group stage and into the quarter finals - something which the US failed to do for the first and only time at France 2018.
Group stage games
The US begin their campaign against Ghana’s Black Princesses on Thursday 11 August. The match will take place at Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto in Alajuela and kicks off at 11 a.m. local time (1 p.m. EDT / 10 a.m. PDT).
The second group game will be played at Estadio Nacional in San José against the Netherlands, who are making their second appearance at the U20 World Cup and made it as far as the quarter finals in 2018 (they were beaten by England). The USA vs Netherlands match will be played on Sunday 14 August, kicking off at the later time of 5 p.m. local time (7 p.m. EDT / 4 p.m. PDT).
The US bring the group stage to a close with perhaps their toughest test, against the defending champions, Japan. Ikeda Futoshi’s team are highly experienced and have been preparing for the tournament with a series of warm-up games including matches against college men’s teams. The group stage comes to a close on Wednesday 17 August with the US taking on Japan at Estadio Alejandro Morera Soto in Alajuela with the game kicking off at 5 p.m. local time (7 p.m. EDT / 4 p.m. PDT).
Later rounds
The top two teams of each group advance to the quarter finals which will be played on 21 and 22 August. Both semi-finals will take place in San José on 25 August with the final and match for third place scheduled for Sunday 28 August, also in San José. All matches from the group stage to the final will be streamed live in over 100 territories on FIFA+.