2018 FIFA World Cup qualification (CONCACAF)
CONCACAF era The North, Central American and Caribbean section of the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification acted as qualifiers for the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, for national teams which are members of the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF).[4][5] The United States failed to qualify for the World Cup finals for the first time since 1986 after a surprise defeat by Trinidad and Tobago.[7] The seeding – used to draw the first four rounds of the qualifiers – was based on the FIFA World Rankings of August 2014 (shown in parentheses).As with every World Cup qualification campaign since 1998, CONCACAF held a six-team, home-and-away round-robin group known as the 'Hexagonal', or 'Hex', as its final and decisive round.[4][5] The draw for the fifth round (to decide the fixtures) was held on 8 July 2016, 10:00 EDT (UTC−4), at the CONCACAF headquarters in Miami Beach, United States.