The opening set of group games in the CONCACAF Gold Cup take place on Tuesday night when we visit Group B in the tournament for the first time as the World Cup co-hosts Canada get their quest for glory underway.
They are the team expected to dominate the section but the three other teams will all fancy their chances of making it into the knockout stages so we should be in for a decent night of football across the two games.
Curacao vs El Salvador (01.15)
The opening match in the group sees the two lower ranked players going at it in San Jose when Curacao and El Salvador look to get their campaign off to a positive start knowing that it is an uphill task if they are unable to win here.
Curacao go into the match off the back of a fine week in World Cup qualifying last week where they picked up two wins to push through with their quest to go to the final stage of reaching the main draw and they scored nine goals in the process which is a positive. Five of those came in a win over Haiti, who have already put up a creditable showing in this tournament. El Salvador are going well in World Cup qualifying themselves but were held by Suriname in their latest outing and have since seen a key player in Nathan Ordaz return to Los Angeles FC for the Club World Cup meaning that he isn’t available here. There is a lot of Premier League and English league level experience in this Curacao squad and that bodes well for them. There are no shortage of goals in it either and with El Salvador largely having home based players in this competition I do think Curacao are worthy favourites. El Salvador can be tough to break down though so I definitely want draw cover here but I do like Curacao on the Asian lines.
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Canada vs Honduras (03.30)
We cross the border into Vancouver for the second match of the night as the co-hosts Canada get their Gold Cup campaign underway when they face the second seeds in Group B in the form of a usually competitive Honduras outfit.
This tournament might well be more important for Canada than is usually the case. They are the co-hosts but also it is the last competitive football that they will encounter until they open up their World Cup campaign next summer so we should expect them to play with plenty of intent and look to stamp their authority on the tournament from the get go. Honduras are looking good to make the final stage of World Cup qualifying but this competition will be much more of a competitive guide of where they are at as a side and they can approach this first game with a little bit of freedom knowing that they will be favourites to win their last two matches. That makes me think that we could see some goals in this match. Canada look one of the better attacking teams in the competition on paper while there are goals in this Honduras team too and both might have their struggles defensively having not been tested too much competitively in recent times. Over 2.5 goals is just about an acceptable price here.
Tips
Back Curacao (-0.25AH) to beat El Salvador for a 3/10 stake at 1.90 with William Hill
Back Canada vs Honduras – Over 2.5 goals for a 3/10 stake at 1.73 with William Hill
Back them here:
