U.S. U-23s draw Panama, Cuba, Canada for Olympic qualifying tournament

The draw for the CONCACAF Men's Olympic Qualifying 2015 took place on Tuesday, August 18. This determined the two groups for the tournament to be held October 1-13. For the United States, this laid out the path to qualifying for the Olympics after missing out in 2012.

Only eight teams qualified for the tournament. As usual, CONCACAF gives the three North American teams a pass. Cuba and Haiti qualified through the Caribbean Football Union's tournament. Panama and Honduras were the two teams from Central American who qualified through that region's qualification by virtue of winning their groups. Guatemala and Costa Rica will play a playoff match as the runners-up of their groups to be the final team in the tournament.

Team USA (I use this because they're playing in the Olympics) drew Panama, Cuba and Canada in Group A. Below is their schedule:

Thursday, October 1: USA v. Canada, 6:30 p.m. ET, Sporting Park, Kansas City, Kan.
Saturday, October 3: Cuba v. USA, 5:00 p.m. ET, Sporting Park, Kansas City, Kan.
Tuesday, October 6: USA v. Panama, 8:30 p.m. ET, Dick's Sporting Goods Park, Commerce City, Colo.

The semifinal, third place and final matches will be played at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah. The top two teams in each group advance to the knockout round, with the two finalists automatically qualifying for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.  The third place winner will play a playoff match with a CONMEBOL team.

Remember, this is a U-23 roster. Expect to see a lot of guys from the U-20 World Cup as well as some full national team mainstays, though it does fall around the time of the Confederations Cup playoff match.