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11.11.08 - NEW YORK - Trinidad & Tobago will host the 2008 CONCACAF U-20 Championship in March, the confederation announced Tuesday, the first time since 1996 that the region will stage the finals of the event in a single country.

The eight-team event will qualify four teams for the U-20 World Cup in Egypt, September 25-October 16, 2009. The 1996 CONCACAF U-20 Championship was a 12-team event held in Mexico. Since then it has been staged as two, four-team groups that qualified two teams each to the FIFA world championship. The CONCACAF U-17 championship similarly will return as a single, eight-team event next year.

"We thought it was important to bring back the concept of a championship," CONCACAF General Secretary Chuck Blazer said. "This gives the teams something to play for other than just being a qualifier for the U-20 World Cup."

Trinidad will be the host of the finals for the fifth time, the last coming in 2001 when it staged one of the two four-team groups.

Group A will be begin play in Dwight Yorke Stadium in Bacolet, Tobago on March 6, the first of six consecutive days of round-robin play that also will be staged in Marvin Lee Stadium in Macoya, Trinidad. The semifinals will be played March 13 in Macoya with the championship and third-place match two days later in Marvin Lee.

Six teams already have qualified for the CONCACAF U-20s. Canada, Mexico and the United States will be joined by host Trinidad and Central American sides Costa Rica and El Salvador. The Caribbean Football Union will stage the finals of its qualifying event November 18-22 in Aruba, with the winner advancing automatically and the runner-up facing Honduras, the third-place finisher in Central American qualifying, for the final berth.