Qualifying for the 2006 World Cup will require the USA to play at least four more games than during its run to the 2002 tournament if CONCACAF's new format is approved by FIFA. The USA played 16 games en route to the 2002 World Cup.
The new format requires all of the region's team to participate in the first round. For the USA, it means qualifying starts in spring in a three-team, home-and-home, round-robin group (four games per team). The U.S. opponents in the first round would be pulled from a pot comprising the region's 23 weakest teams.
Winners of the 11 three-team groups and one two-team group qualify for the second round, which will be contested in three groups of four — home-and-home round-robin (six games per team) — with the top two finishers qualifying for the six-team final round (10 games each).
The top there finishers in the final phase, known as the Hexagonal, automatically qualify the finals. The fourth-place finisher faces the fifth-place team from the Asian Football Confederation in a playoff to determine the last berth at Germany 2006.
A team that qualifies as a top-three finisher will have played 20 qualifiers. The fourth-place team, after its playoff with Asia's contender, will have played 22.
Teams that USA will NOT face in the first round are: Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras, Trinidad & Tobago, Jamaica, Canada, Cuba, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Panama.
Teams that USA will NOT face in the second round are: Mexico and Costa Rica.