Monday, February 18, 2013

Valparaiso freshman midfielder Alvaro Betancourt (Caguas, P.R.) has joined his Puerto Rico U20 national team teammates south of the border for the 2013 CONCACAF U20 Championship to be held Feb. 18 - Mar. 3, 2013 in Puebla, Mexico.

The 12-team tournament is divided into four groups of three teams, and Betancourt's Puerto Rico side will face Jamaica on Feb. 18 at 5:30 p.m. CT in its opener. Puerto Rico will play its second match of group play on Thursday, Feb. 21 at 5:30 p.m. when the Blue Hurricane face Panama in Puebla's famed Estadio Cuauhtemoc.

The United States U20 side is also present in the tournament, headlining Group A, and will open the tournament on Monday at 5:30 p.m. CT facing Haiti in a match to be televised on Fox Soccer.

Betancourt, a regular in the Puerto Rico national team set up throughout the qualifying process, will look to lead his team out of the challenging Group C and into the quarterfinals. The CONCACAF U20 champion will be crowned on Mar. 3, while the tournament's top four nations will all qualify to represent the CONCACAF region in the FIFA U20 World Cup, set to be held in Turkey beginning in June of 2013.