ROSE HALL, St James — Jamaica’s Under-20 men’s team will have to get the better of old foes the United States and Trinidad and Tobago as well as bogey team Panama at next year’s CONCACAF finals to be held here in Jamaica if they are to qualify for the FIFA World Championships to be held in New Zealand next year.

At yesterday’s draw for the 25th staging of the event held at the Hilton Hotel and Spa in Rose Hall, hosts Jamaica, who were pre-seeded in Group A, were drawn alongside those three as well as first-time qualifiers Aruba and Guatemala for the tournament that will be held in Kingston and Montego Bay January 9-24 next year.

Two-time defending CONCACAF champions Mexico will top Group B, which also includes Haiti, Canada, Cuba, Honduras and El Salvador.

Four teams will automatically qualify for the global event.

Jeffrey Webb, president of CONCACAF, said he was expecting an outstanding tournament and described this staging as an “evolution” with former World Cup players Theodore Whitmore and Tab Ramos coaching Jamaica and the United States, respectively.

Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) president Captain Horace Burrell urged all Jamaicans to “accept the challenge (of hosting the tournament) with both hands and make the best of it”.

“I am expecting the greatest ever Under-20 tournament and we know this one is going to be great,” said Burrell.

Jamaica will play all their first-round games at the National Stadium in Kingston, where all Group A games will be played, while the Montego Bay Sports Complex will host the games in Group B as well as the final phase of the tournament.

The format that will be used for the first time sees the 12 qualified teams separated in two groups of six each and the winners of each group after the round-robin will advance to the World Cup, while the second-and third-place teams in each group will advance to the final day knockout phase, “with the chance to dispute one of a pair of play-in matches which will determine CONCACAF’s other two World Cup spots”.

The new format, CONCACAF explained, gives more teams a chance at qualifying for the World Cup, up to five from just two under the previous format.

In a bid to favour development and competition, the new CONCACAF Under-20 tournament format has increased the number of guaranteed games for each participant to five, up from two in previous editions of the championship.