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Two teams from Panama, Costa Rica and Mexico will qualify from the 2017 CONCACAF Men's U-17 Championship's Classification Stage for the 2017 U-17 World Cup.
Mexico is technically the weaker team in the group: the runner-up in Group C after losing to the USA, while Panama and Costa Rica were unbeaten in their respective group stage games. But Mexico is historically dominant at the CONCACAF U-17 level, and seems simply to have come up against an unusually good USA team - which it is expected to see again in the final of this tournament.
Given the expectation that El Tri will win both its Classification Stage games, the safest way for one of the other teams in its group to make it to the U-17 World Cup is to win the one match it has against an opponent that isn't Mexico. And that makes this game between Panama and Costa Rica a sort of playoff for U-17 World Cup qualification.
Panama is the home team, but also a team that dropped points in the group stage (in a scoreless draw with Haiti) and beat Curacao by only a single goal. Costa Rica won all three of its group stage games. On the other hand, Panama beat its main rival in the group stage, Honduras, with a little more comfort than Costa Rica managed against its perceived primary challenger, Canada. Los Canaleros won a back-and-forth game with Los Catrachos, 4-2; Los Ticos needed a 95th-minute goal to snatch a win over Canada.
Costa Rica won the Central American qualifying tournament for this Championship; Panama qualified automatically as the host. It's hard to pick a winner for this one, but neither wants to face Mexico needing three points, so expect both teams to be well-motivated to go for the win.