USA to host U-17 women’s international tournament in February

CHICAGO (Via U.S. Soccer) – For the third consecutive year, U.S. Soccer will host a four-team Under-17 women’s international tournament at the U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Carson, California. This year’s event will run from Feb 11-15 as the USA hosts England, Japan and Korea Republic in the 2016 U-17 Women’s NTC Invitational.

All the matches will be played at Glenn “Mooch” Myernick Field and available to watch on ussoccer.com.

Each of the match days in the round-robin tournament – February 11, 13 and 15 – will feature a doubleheader with the USA playing the second game of the day. The winner of the competition will be based on total points with tie-breakers in order of overall goal difference and then total goals scored. Admission to the matches is free to the public, as is parking. All six matches will be shown live onussoccer.com with Marc Serber again providing commentary.

The USA has won the competition two years in a row. At last year’s event, the USA defeated Mexico 3-1, downed Canada 2-0 and beat Japan 3-1 as Ashley Sanchez scored in all three games to post five goals overall. Emina Ekic had two goals in the tournament.

In 2014, the USA defeated China PR, 4-0, New Zealand, 2-0, and Japan 2-1 to win the competition. Japan went on to win the 2014 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica.

The U.S. U-17s are in the middle of their cycle that will hopefully see them qualify for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup that is scheduled to take place in Jordan. The CONCACAF qualifying tournament will be in March on the Caribbean island of Grenada and the NTC Invitational will be the final event before U.S. head coach B.J. Snow names his 20-player roster for Qualifying.

Japan has already qualified for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup (along with China PR and Korea DPR from Asia) while England will attempt to qualify in May. Korea Republic failed to qualify.

“Since its inception two years ago, the U-17 Women’s NTC Invitational has been a tremendous showcase for women’s soccer and we are sure this year will be no different,” said Snow. “We have brought in three great teams that will provide us an excellent platform to evaluate where we are as a team and help us prepare for World Cup Qualifying. It is critical that we continue to provide our top youth players with meaningful international games and we are excited for the opportunity to test ourselves against some of the best teams in the world.”

Additional Tournament Notes:

• Each team is allowed 20 players on its tournament roster.
• Teams will be allowed six total substitutions per game with no re-entry. In the second half of the matches, a team may stop the game a maximum of three times to make substitutions. During each of these stoppages, a team may make more than one substitution, up to the limit of the six total per match.
• Substitutions made at halftime do not count as a stoppage in the second half.
• The 2016 U-17 Women’s NTC Invitational is for players born on or after Jan. 1, 1999, which is the age cut-off for the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup. However, following a request from the Korea Republic (which did not qualify for the 2016 U-17 WWC), special dispensation has been granted for this event to allow teams to also compete with players born on or after Jan. 1, 1998. The USA will only use World Cup age-eligible players.
• There will be no suspensions for accumulation of yellow cards during the tournament, but a player receiving a red card will have to sit out a minimum of one match.
• If two or more teams are equal on goal difference and goals scored, the ties will be broken as follow: 1) greatest number of points obtained in the matches between the teams concerned; 2) goal difference resulting from the matches between the teams concerned; 3) greater number of goals scored in the matches between the teams concerned; 4) drawing of lots by the U-17 Women’s NTC Invitational Tournament Committee.