The U.S. Women’s National Team, currently a week into a six-month residency, has announced plans to travel to Japan for a pair of friendlies against the host country during the second week of May. The contests will be the eight and ninth games of 2006 for the U.S. and will also be the first matches for the squad since the heartbreaking penalty-kick loss to Germany in the finals of March’s Algarve Cup.

Japan will first host the U.S. on May 7 at midnight ET (1 p.m. local time) at the KK Wing Stadium in Kumamoto and then again just two days later at 3:30 a.m. ET (4:30 p.m. local time) at the Nagai Stadium in Osaka. The latter match will be the opener in a doubleheader that will also feature the Japanese men’s side against Bulgaria in a World Cup tune-up.

The U.S. was victorious the last time the two squads met—a 2-1 win during the 2004 Olympic quarterfinals—although the three matches previous to the Olympics ended in draws. Japan, who is ranked 11th in the FIFA World Rankings, is coming off of a 0-1 loss at the hands of Italy on March 12, 2006. Nonetheless, Japan’s two other matches this year were emphatic victories, a 4-0 thrashing of Scotland on March 10 and a 2-0 win over Russia on February 18.

Additionally, more U.S. friendlies are expected to be announced in the coming weeks.

CONCACAF Qualifying

In FIFA 2007 Women’s World Cup qualifying news, CONCACAF has finally made some progress in scheduling the Gold Cup, the confederation’s qualifying tournament, as well as all of the preliminaries beforehand. The Gold Cup itself will be a single elimination format, held sometime in late November and will feature six teams (two of whom will be the U.S. and Canada, who have both received a bye into what is essentially the semi-final round). The top two finishers of that tourney will automatically qualify for the 2007 Women’s World Cup and the third-place finisher will face the third place finisher from the Asian Confederation’s tourney in a home-and-away playoff for the final spot in the World Cup.

Of the other four teams that will participate in the Gold Cup, two will be from the Caribbean and two will be from Central America and Mexico. Preliminary qualifying to determine which four teams will advance to the Gold Cup will be held largely in May, although two teams—the British Virgin Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands—have already begun a home-and-away series to determine who will qualifies for the qualifiers. And no, that’s not a typo.

Mexico will join five Central American teams as they all compete for two Gold Cup berths in one regional qualification. Group A in that region will consist of Mexico, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, while Group B will be made up of Panama, Costa Rica and Guatemala. The games will be held in mid-May and the winner of each group will move on to the Gold Cup.

The Caribbean regional qualifier, on the other hand, will be made up of sixteen teams in four groups. They include, in Group A: Bermuda; Dominican Republic; Turks & Caicos Islands; and the winner of the British Virgin Islands and U.S. Virgin Islands series. Group B will consist of: Aruba; Haiti; Netherlands Antilles; and Surinam. Group C includes: Antigua & Barbados; Jamaica; St. Kitts & Nevis; and St. Lucia. Finally, Group D is made up of: Trinidad & Tobago; Dominica; Grenada; and St. Vincent & The Grenadines. Group play will take place in May and each group winner will advance to a Caribbean regional four-team final in early September. The top two teams from that stage will advance on to the Gold Cup.

Goal.com Women’s Editor Sayre Priddy