MIAMI – Concacaf Friday unveiled details for its first Gold Cup draw.

The draw will take place here on Monday, Sept. 28 at 8 p.m. ET.

The made-for-tv live event will be hosted by Emmy award winning TUDN sportscaster Lindsay Casinelli and Fox Sports Lead Soccer Analyst and former U.S. men’s international Alexi Lalas.

The draw for the group stage will be conducted by Concacaf Director of Competitions, Carlos Fernandez, alongside former Honduras national team star Wilson Palacios, a standout player in the 2005, 2007 and 2011 editions of the Gold Cup. For the preliminary round, Concacaf’s director of development and former Grenada international Jason Roberts will draw the teams.

Several national team head coaches will participate virtually in the evening’s event to provide live interviews following the outcome of the draw.

Concacaf last month announced a series of enhancements to the 2021 edition of its flagship regional tournament. These include a draw, the introduction of the preliminaries to qualify the final three teams for the group stage and a change to the knockout stage which will mean the top seeded teams can meet before the final.

The draw will be available for fans across the region to view on TUDN (Mexico and USA), FS2 (USA and Caribbean), One Soccer (Canada) and other local partners. For other territories, the event will be available on the Official Concacaf App, Concacaf Facebook page and Concacaf YouTube channel (subject to territory restrictions).

Gold Cup Prelims Draw

The draw for the preliminaries will involve the 12 national teams which earned a place in the Gold Cup qualifiers through their performances in the Concacaf Nations League group stage, which was played in September, October and November 2019. This includes the bottom placed finishers in League A groups, the runners-up in League B groups and the winners of League C groups.

The top six teams based on the Concacaf ranking will be pre-seeded into match-ups one through six, and the next six will be drawn from a single pot. After direct elimination play over three match-days between July 2-6, the 12 teams will be reduced to a final three who will qualify for the Gold Cup group stage.

Gold Cup preliminary seeded teams and draw pot (based on Concacaf ranking as of August)

Pre-seeded teams: Haiti, Guatemala, Trinidad and Tobago, Cuba, Guadeloupe and Bermuda

Pot 1: French Guiana, Guyana, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Barbados, Montserrat and Bahamas

Gold Cup group stage draw

The draw for the group stage comprises the 12 national teams which qualified directly through their performances in the Concacaf Nations League group stage. They include the League A group winners and runners-up, and the League B group winners. Additionally, the AFC Asian Cup Champions, Qatar, will compete as a guest participant.

The teams will be split into four pots based on the Concacaf Rankings and drawn into one of Groups A, B, C or D.

As the identity of the three qualifying teams through the Gold Cup preliminaries will not be known until July 6, 2021, for the purposes of the draw there will be three spheres labelled as preliminary winners.

The top four ranked nations (Pot 1) will be seeded based on the Concacaf ranking, with the current Gold Cup champions Mexico heading Group A, USA Group B, Costa Rica Group C and Honduras Group D.

The remaining competing teams will be distributed in Pots 2, 3 and 4 based on their ranking. The guest team, Qatar, will be pre-drawn into the group which begins play on the latest date (Group D) as the team will also compete in the Copa America which concludes in early July.

Gold Cup group stage draw pots (based on Concacaf ranking as of August)

Pot 1 (pre-seeded teams): Mexico (Group A), USA (Group B), Costa Rica (Group C) and Honduras (Group D)

Pot 2: Jamaica, Canada, Panama and El Salvador

Pot 3: Martinique, Curacao, Suriname and Grenada

Pot 4: Three Prelims Winners and Qatar (Group D)

Concacaf will announce venues, kick-off times, schedule, and other details for the 2021 Gold Cup in the coming months.

The preliminaries will be played July 2-6, the group stage will begin July 10 and the Gold Cup final will be played Aug. 1.

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.