In less than a month, the CONCACAF U20 Championship boots its first ball in Panama. This year marks the 26th edition of the tournament, which runs back to 1962 and serves as the regional qualifier for the U20 World Cup later this year.

There’s a general perception stoked by the CONCACAF status of the U.S. senior team that the American U20s are something of a dominant force continentally. There’s precedent for that viewpoint, of course. The U.S. has made qualifying for the U20 World Cup a routine matter of course, and 2011 was the only time the U.S. missed out on the tournament in the last 20 years (1977-1995 was a rougher time; the U.S. missed five of the 10 World Cups in that span).

But CONCACAF has historically been something of a bugbear for the U.S. U20s. Because of the 20 editions of this tournament that crowned a singular CONCACAF champion over the span of more than 50 years, the U.S. has never won it.

The format of this tournament has changed a few times, notably before the 2015 edition when a playoff round for qualification was reintroduced (which the U.S. needed to win to qualify). Now, the final is a ceremonial game with no actual meaning, since both contestants already qualified by virtue of their status as group-winners. But it was reinstituted to reinvigorate the competition, which had grown somewhat stale without a grand finale.

In any case, the U.S. is still seeking out its first U20 CONCACAF title as the tourney kicks off again in February. Here’s a look at the five most talented U.S. teams and how they fared after bulling through CONCACAF. The first lesson: don’t mess with 1999.