Guidry, Rouse begin competition in FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Thursday

Courtesy UVA Media Relations

Virginia defenders Samar Guidry and Laney Rouse are set to take the international stage on Thursday when the U.S. U-20 Women’s National Team opens play at the U20 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica.

The United States is competing in Group D for the group stages along with Ghana, Japan and Netherlands. The U.S. kicks things off in group play against Ghana at 1 p.m. Group play continues on Sunday (Aug. 14) and concludes on Wednesday (Aug. 17) with two teams from each group advancing to the quarterfinals.

Guidry and Rouse were both members of the U.S. squad that competed in the Dominican Republic back in March that locked up the berth in the U-20 World Cup by claiming the Concacaf U-20 Women’s Championship.

Guidry also competed for the United States in the 2018 U-17 Women’s World Cup and has been a part of the U-19 Youth National Team. She was also part of the 2020 U-20 Youth National Team. Rouse has been a member of U.S. Soccer Youth National teams at the U-14, U-16, U-19 and U-20 stages.

Sixteen teams will compete at the 2022 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup: Host Costa Rica, the USA, Mexico and Canada from Concacaf, Australia, Korea Republic and Japan from Asia, Ghana and Nigeria from Africa, Spain, Germany, France and the Netherlands from Europe, New Zealand from Oceania and Brazil and Colombia from South America. There are no first-time participants in this year’s U-20 Women’s World Cup, and 11 countries return from the last edition in 2018. The five countries that did not compete in 2018 are Costa Rica, Canada, Australia, Korea Republic and Colombia.

The 16 nations were drawn into four groups of four teams. The top two finishers in each group will advance to the quarterfinals, to be held on Saturday, Aug. 20 and Sunday, Aug. 21. The winners of those matches will advance to the semifinals on Thursday, Aug. 25. The Championship and Third-Place match will be played on Sunday, Aug 28. All matches will be played at two venues which are only about 12 miles apart: Estadio Nacional in San José and Estadio Morera Soto in Alajuela.

All matches of the tournament will be broadcast on the Fox Sports family of networks and online on FoxSports.com with corresponding authentication.