The winners of the 2025 CONCACAF Central American Cup will qualify directly for the2026 CONCACAF Champions Cup Round of 16, while the second through sixth place teams will qualify to Round One.[1]
Twenty teams from the seven UNCAF member associations qualified for the tournament based on results from their domestic leagues.[2][3] Eighteen slots were predetermined by CONCACAF while the remaining two slots were again granted to Costa Rica and Nicaragua as the national associations whose clubs were finalists in theprevious edition of the tournament.[4][5] The slot allocation for this edition was as follows:
Costa Rica: 3+1 berths
El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Panama: 3 berths
The draw for the group stage was held on 8 June 2023, 18:30EDT (UTC−4), inMiami, Florida, United States. The 20 involved teams were previously seeded into five pots of four teams each based on their CONCACAF Club Ranking as of 2 June 2025.[3][15]
For the group stage, the 20 teams were drawn into four groups (Groups A–D) of five containing a team from each of the five pots. Teams from pot 1 were drawn first and were placed in the first position of their group, starting from Group A to Group D. The same procedure was followed for teams from pots 2, 3, 4 and 5, and they were placed in positions 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively, within the group to which they were drawn. Each group must contain no more than two clubs from the same national association.[3]
In the group stage, each group is played on a single home-and-awayround-robin basis, with teams playing against each other once, for a total of four matches per team (two home and two away).The winners and runners-up of each group advanced to thequarter-finals of theknockout stage.
Each tie is played on a home-and-awaytwo-legged basis. The home team of the second leg in each tie will be determined separately for each round as follows (Regulations Article 12.11):
In the quarter-finals, the group winners hosted the second leg.
In the semi-finals and play-in, the higher-ranked teams based on total points accumulated in the group stage and the quarterfinals will host the second leg.
In the finals, the higher-ranked team based on total points accumulated in the group stage, quarterfinals and semi-finals will host the second leg.
In each round, if tied on aggregate, theaway goals rule would be used. If still tied, 30 minutes ofextra time would be played but the away goals scored during this time would not serve as a tie-breaking criteria. If still tied after extra time, the penalty shoot-out would be used to determine the winner (Regulations Article 12.10.2).
Teams were seeded 1–8 based on results in the group stage and assigned a position in a fixed bracket. For each round, the host of the second leg was determined based on performance in all previous rounds, including the group stage.
The following was the seeding for the quarter-finals round only:[16]
Source:CONCACAF Rules for classification: 1) Points; 2) Goal difference; 3) Goals scored; 4) Away goals scored; 5) Wins; 6) Away wins; 7) Disciplinary points (1 point for yellow card, 3 points for second yellow card/indirect red card, 4 points for direct red card, 5 points for yellow card and direct red card); 8) Drawing of lots (Regulations Article 12.11.4).[2]
Belize(1 berth)
Costa Rica
El Salvador
Guatemala
Honduras
Nicaragua
Panama
Pedro Báez
Marcel Hernández
Gustavo Souza