CHICAGO – The United States will host the 2020 Concacaf Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament that will send two nations to the 2020 Summer Olympics in Japan.

The tournament will be held from Jan. 28 through Feb. 9, and the official draw and host cities announcement will take place on Nov. 7 at the Mediapro studios in Miami, Fla. Fans can follow all the drama beginning at 2:30 pm (ET) on www.concacaf.com, Concacaf GO, the official Concacaf YouTube page, and the Concacaf Facebook page.

Venue or venues for the competition were not announced.

The competition will feature eight nations divided into two groups of four teams each. After round-robin play within the groups running from Jan. 28-Feb. 4, the top two finishers will cross over for the semifinals, with the winners of those matches qualifying for the Olympics and for the tournament championship game. The semifinals will be held Friday, Feb. 7 and the championship Sunday, Feb. 9.

The seven nations that will join the USA to compete for the Olympic berths are Canada and Mexico from North America, Costa Rica and Panama from Central America and Haiti, Jamaica and Saint Kitts and Nevis from the Caribbean.

The USA, which captured the Women’s World Cup title this summer, has participated in all six Olympic women’s soccer tournaments that have been contested, winning a record four gold medals (1996, 2004, 2008 and 2012) along with one silver medal (2000).

As host, the U.S. did not have to qualify for the 1996 tournament, the first for women’s soccer in the Olympics which the Americans won in historic fashion downing China PR 2-1 in front of 76,489 fans in Athens, Ga. The USA qualified for the 2000 Olympics by virtue of its top-seven finish at the 1999 Women’s World Cup, which it won.

The USA has won the last four Concacaf Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournaments, in Costa Rica in 2004, in Mexico in 2008, in Canada in 2012 and in the USA in 2016 when the competition was held in Edinburg, Houston and Frisco, Texas.

No country has won the Women’s World Cup and the Olympics in back-to-back years, a feat the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup champion USA will be working towards once it begins qualifying. The USA was knocked out of the 2016 Olympics by Sweden via penalty kicks in the quarterfinals, the USWNT’s earliest ever exit from a world championship event.

Front Row Soccer editor Michael Lewis has covered 13 World Cups (eight men, five women), seven Olympics and 25 MLS Cups. He has written about New York City FC, New York Cosmos, the New York Red Bulls and both U.S. national teams for Newsday and has penned a soccer history column for the Guardian.com. Lewis, who has been honored by the Press Club of Long Island and National Soccer Coaches Association of America, is the former editor of BigAppleSoccer.com. He has written seven books about the beautiful game and has published ALIVE AND KICKING The incredible but true story of the Rochester Lancers. It is available at Amazon.com.