Canada suffered a minor setback on Monday, but still managed to advance to the knockout round of the Concacaf U-20 Women’s Championship in the Dominican Republic.

After opening the tournament with a 2-0 win over El Salvador on Saturday, the Canadian women were held to a 0-0 draw by Guatemala in its second match of the group stage.

Canada outshot Guatemala 11-7 in a tight game that produced few clear cut scoring chances.

The Reds’ next game at the Concacaf U-20 competition is Feb 26 vs. Jamaica.

Canada is attempting to qualify for the 2020 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup, which will be co-hosted by Panama and Costa Rica in August. nOnly the two finalists of this Concacaf competition qualify for the World Cup, so the margin of error is slim.

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This year’s U-20 Concacaf tournament features a new format, with 20 teams now involved instead of the previous eight. In order to qualify for the World Cup, Canada needs to advance through the knockout stages and win a semifinal match.

Canada has been drawn into Group E with Jamaica, Guatemala, and El Salvador. Jamaica defeated El Salvador 4-1 on Monday, so Canada is tied for first in Group E with the Jamaicans on four points – although Jamaica has a better goal difference, which is the first tiebreaker.

The top three teams in each of the four round-robin groups advance to a 16-team knockout stage. Both Jamaica and Canada have earned a berth in the round of 16, but their game on Wednesday will determine who wins Group E.

“We are through to the next round in what will be a very long tournament with a lot of matches in a short amount of time,” Canadian coach Rhian Wilkinson said.

“It was a draw against a tough Guatemala team, but now we need to beat Jamaica because we want to come out of our group in first place. We are through to the next round so it won’t be an all or nothing scenario, but definitely Jamaica are a good team so we will have to prepare well in order to deliver a performance to get that win in just two days.”

Should Canada win its group, its first-round opponent will be Bermuda, one of four nations who enter directly into the round of 16 – the others are Saint Lucia, Grenada, and Barbados.

Wilkinson is a former former national team standout who scored seven goals and tallied 23 assists in 181 appearances (fourth all-time in team history) between 2003 and 2017. She helped the Reds win bronze medals at the 2012 London Olympics and in 2016 at the Rio Games, and participated in four FIFA Women’s World Cups.

This Canadian U-20 squad features players born in 2000 or later, and all of them have spent time playing in Canada Soccer’s Women’s EXCEL Program at the youth level. Of the 20 players on the roster, 17 have played for Canada in previous Concacaf or FIFA youth tournaments.

Canada has participated in seven of the nine FIFA U-20 World Cups to date.

It’s best showing was in 2002, when the tournament was known as the FIFA U-19 Women’s World Cup. That competition was staged in Canada, and saw the Canadians lose to the United States in extra time in the final before 47, 784 fans at Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium.

Canada also reached the quarter-finals in 2004 and 2014.

It failed to qualify in 2018, losing to Mexico in the semifinals of the Concacaf qualifiers via penalty shootout, and the suffered a 1-0 loss to Haiti in third-place game.