MEX­I­CO CITY, Mex­i­co – Ja­maica suf­fered a heart­break­ing 3-1 ex­tra time de­feat to Cana­da in the Con­ca­caf Un­der-20 Cham­pi­onships here on Wednes­day to bring their hopes of qual­i­fy­ing for the Un­der-20 World Cup to a screech­ing halt.

With the win, Cana­da ad­vanced to the se­mi-fi­nals and earned qual­i­fi­ca­tion for both the World Cup and the Los An­ge­les Olympics.

Play­ing in their quar­ter­fi­nal match at the Es­ta­dio Cuauhté­moc, an ex­cit­ing first half pro­duced no goals with both sides wast­ing chances.

Cana­da’s Richard Chuk­wu broke through in the sec­ond minute to set up Lu­cas Li­ma, who shot wide, be­fore Owen Gra­ham-Roache missed a sim­i­lar chance five min­utes lat­er.

Ja­maica’s best chance of the first half came in the 26th minute when Rae­quan Camp­bell-Den­nis crossed to Jah­marie Nolan at the back post, but the for­ward’s head­er missed the tar­get.

Ja­maica al­most took the lead ear­ly in the sec­ond half, with Jah­mani Bell near­ly catch­ing Cana­da’s goal­keep­er Nathaniel Abra­ham off his line in the 54th minute with a shot from 60 yards that went just wide.

How­ev­er, it was Cana­da who took the lead three min­utes lat­er when Liam Macken­zie ran through the Ja­maican mid­field, beat sev­er­al de­fend­ers, and shot past keep­er Joshua Grant.

Cana­da con­tin­ued to cre­ate chances, with Mar­ius Aiyen­ero hav­ing a goal ruled out for off­side by VAR in the 73rd minute.

Ja­maica drew lev­el in the 87th minute af­ter sub­sti­tute Gio­van­ni Tay­lor was fouled in the box. Nolan stepped up to bury the re­sult­ing penal­ty, mark­ing his fourth goal of the tour­na­ment and the fourth-straight game Ja­maica scored in the fi­nal five min­utes of reg­u­lar time.

Cana­da put the match to bed in added time, with Macken­zie con­vert­ing from the penal­ty spot in the 93rd minute be­fore Max Vo­gele found the back of the net from the edge of the box in the 116th minute.

CMC