The CONCACAF Gold Cup gets underway at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena on Saturday night when the first two fixtures in Group A of the tournament take place with the four sides in the group all looking to pick up an early win and ease the pressure on their last two matches.
We have a couple of strong favourites in the two matches as we are going to have throughout the opening set of games and it will be interesting to see whether both justify the billing or if there is a surprise along the way.
Canada vs Martinique (00.30)
We begin with the second and third seeds in the group when the former winners Canada, one of only three teams ever to win this tournament, take on Martinique who were an improving force in the recent Nations League in this part of the world.
Martinique won all four matches to qualify in the top league for that competition later in the year, as did Canada so that suggests that this could be a close encounter but generally Canada operate at a higher level than their opponents and I would expect that to come to fruition here over the course of the 90 minutes.
With the likes of Alphonso Davies getting the experience of playing for Madrid and a few other members of this Canadian squad at good clubs in Europe not to mention a raft of MLS stars there is suddenly a real strength in depth in the Canada set up and I believe we will see that count for something here. I’ll take them to cover a 1.25 goal handicap with the options they have from the bench against a tiring side.
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Mexico vs Cuba (03.00)
The downfall of adding four sides to this tournament means there is the danger for opening up a few mismatches and the first those looks to be the second game on the first night of the competition when tournament favourites Mexico take on Cuba.
We know all about Mexico and the style they will bring to the contest but Cuba are more of an unknown. We do know that they won three of their four matches in Nations League qualifying but we should remember that was a good level or two below Mexico but with an Italian head coach it would be something of a surprise if they are not at least organised.
Mexico should win this match but we saw with Brazil in the Copa America on Friday evening that just winning is the priority and it isn’t easy to hit top gear straight away. If I had to bet I’d probably side with them covering a four goal Asian line but I’m happy to watch and observe this one.
Tips
WON – Back Canada (-1.25AH) to beat Martinique for a 4/10 stake at 2.00 with BetVictor
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