A pair of Group A favorites squared off on Wednesday night in Denver battling for the top spot.
Tata Martino’s Mexico clinched a knockout stage berth after a 3-1 win over Canada at Mile High Stadium. Andres Guardado scored a brace while Roberto Alvarado also found the back of the net.
Alvarado’s opener came 40 minutes in as he roofed a rebound into the top of the net for his first goal in the competition.
Guardado extended El Tri’s advantage in the 54th-minute with a beautiful strike from outside of the box.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME ANDRES GUARDADO?! 🚀🚀🚀
El Principito scores his 11th Gold Cup goal and doubles Mexico's lead 🇲🇽 #GoldCup2019 pic.twitter.com/hlB3ZVLByc
— FOX Soccer (@FOXSoccer) June 20, 2019
Lucas Cavalini pulled a goal back for Canada in the 75th-minute but it wouldn’t be enough as Mexico retained their two-goal advantage. Guardado put away Uriel Antuna’s assist for his second of the night.
Mexico are 2-0-0 and take on Martinique on Sunday, while Canada next faces winless Cuba.
Cuba 0 – Martinique 3
Martinique remained alive in Group D after a comfortable 3-0 win over Cuba on Wednesday.
Kevin Fortune was man of the match after scoring one goal and adding two assists.
Joris Marveaux’s header in the 45th-minute put Martinique ahead before halftime as he finished Kevin Fortune’s cross into the bottom-right corner.
Fortune set up his side’s insurance goal in the 70th-minute as this time Stephane Abaul headed in from a corner-kick.
Erick Rizo was sent off in the 80th-minute after picking up his second yellow card for a foul on Fortune.
Fortune called his own number for the final goal of the game as he sent a low drive into the bottom-left corner.
Cuba finished with more possession but only had three shots on goal as they suffered their second defeat of the Gold Cup.
This team with Vela, Herrera, Lozano and Tata as coach is a terrific team. Very excited about what this next cycle holds.
I saw the match, I wasn’t impressed by El Tri. Mexico had no continuity until Guettirez (misspelled), went down in the 34’. Guardado came in, and change the match. Tata’s strategy wasn’t working. Do you know how I know? His frustration was easy to see, because he was arguing with the Canadian coach. Bizzy- you were one of the MANY commenters, saying, “Atlanta sucks!”, because of USMNT players- Greg Garza sux, Guzan sux, Larentowicz sux, Parkhurst sux, Nagbe sux, and then they won a championship, in a 3-5-2. In ‘17, Tata’s 1st year, the formation was a 4-2-3-1, and the 5stripes went out, & got Nagbe. Many commenters, paid no attention to the players, or the system change. All of sudden, the negative comments are forgotten. TATA IS AWESOME, though, he had no interest in speaking to the majority of his players in their language. Last night wasn’t anything special. He simply was forced to make a sub, and Guardado single handily change the game. This amnesia, we seem to have is ridiculous!
“. Bizzy- you were one of the MANY commenters, saying, “Atlanta sucks!”, because of USMNT players- Greg Garza sux, Guzan sux, Larentowicz sux, Parkhurst sux, Nagbe sux, and then they won a championship, in a 3-5-2.”
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……NOW I KNOW YOU ARE FULL OF IT It’s Ok 2 Think…because I’m one of the people who always praises TATA because he could make superstars out of old Parkhurst 34 and Jeff Larentowicz 34, and I ALWAYS praise Darlington Nagbe and how he should be in the center for the USMNT instead of MB. I even said I wished TATA was still at Atlanta when Brek Shea got there to aid in his development. Nice try, next time get your facts straight
Like Johnnyrazor…..back up what you say. Get a link to a conversation…title….anything were I said Atlanta sucked or Nagbe sucked or Parkhurst sucked…..I’ll be waiting for a minute lol
I agree, I would have liked to see what Martino could do. But I really would urge you not to underestimate the lack of quality in our player pool right now. We’re clearly at a low point, one of the lowest I can recall in a long time. I have a feeling we’ll look back in two to three years and marvel how far we’ve come when one or more of Sargent, Weah, Ledesma, Mendez, Pomykal, Dest, Llanez, Richards, Gloster, Araujo, Reyna, Pepi, Yow, Kobe-Hernandez, and Bello has broken through the ranks and ups our game big time. Until then, we’re going to suffer as soccer fans, regardless of who the coach is.
For example, I cannot stand watching a 31 year old Tim Ream continuously give away possession against Guyana–GUYANA–but if you look at the pool, there are few realistic alternatives to put in there (Lovitz isn’t a national team level player in my view, Robinson has gotten consistently smoked, and there are no other obvious candidates). Gloster, Kobe-Hernandez, and Bello are great prospects but realistically they won’t be ready for a few years (I would guess 2021 or 2022).
Go down the roster and the same problem repeats far too often–notably at the 10 spot. There is no-one–NO ONE–in the player pool who is an international quality 10 and I’m including Pulisic in that group, who is simply not a 10. Pomykal is possibly an upgrade over Pulisic in the 10 spot–and that puts Pulisic on the left wing where he belongs–but Pomykal is really more of a box-to-box 8 and would be in a battle with McKennie for starting time in our first XI. Weah is a like-for-like swap with Arriola, which still leaves Pulisic at the 10. I would love to see Mendez transition into the full team, but he was over-matched physically at the U20 World Cup, which was understandable given that he was an 18 year old playing against 20 year olds in many cases. He needs some time to develop into his body. And he’s also not really a 10. Ledesma is probably the best prospect but hard to place all your money on one kid. Bottom line–we have player personnel problems all over the field that even Martino couldn’t fix.
I think the following is a fair assessment of Berhalter thus far. He is an excellent coach–he proved that with minimal resources in Columbus. Hell, Martino thinks he’s a good coach and has said as much. He appears to have improved moral within the group (but not the fan base). He has a plan. It may take a while to implement but it’s there.
He’s made two clear mistakes, however, that I don’t believe Martino would have made.
One, player selection: he needs to stop messing around with Gyasi Zardes. “Work hard” is not a compliment for a forward. As Adam Belz said on one of the recent Scuffed podcasts, Zardes is where danger goes to die, and he’s right. As between a crappy Josh Sargent (who looked crappy against Jamaica) and a crappy Zardes (who looks crappy every game), I would take Sargent all day long and twice on Sunday (mind you, a clean start and full pre-season with Bremen may be the best thing for him). Will Trapp is similarly situated and is simply not an international quality 6 and we have an international quality 6 in Adams (who I know is injured).
Two, he needs to stop fooling around with systems instead of focusing on fundamental soccer (i.e., close down space quickly, win the ball, better off-the-ball movement, penetrating runs, etc., etc.). It’s too cute by half. We’re not Man City. We’re a crappy international side right now that needs to get back to the basics.
I somewhat doubt Martino would have made those two mistakes. Berhalter needs to own those mistakes and fix them.
The more time goes by the more I wish we had Gerardo Martino a.k.a Tata, at the helm for the USMNT. It’s not like trophies would fall from the sky but Just like what he is doing with Mexico, what he did with the 2018 MLS ALLSTAR team he coached (by not drinking the coolaid lol ?) or what he did in Atlanta; he would totally root out “one dimensional” players that are currently on the team (not to mention he is one of the few coaches that knows the capabilities and limitations of MLS). Even though this team is said to be the B team, their pace, ball control, comfort level on the ball, their passing, quickness to the ball (press)….was impressive. Any player at any given time can score for this team (….can you imagine if JUST Vela was add to this team????). Very impressive……we sure lucked out. damn ?
Well, bizzy, time to get over it and stop admiring our rival.
(assuming you are a fan of the USMNT).
I don’t care how good Mexico looks and who they beat in friendlies.
As always, let’s see if they can prove it when it counts.
Watched the first half. their movement off the ball is very good.
The Canadian goal was a good indication of their weakness.
If you can high press Mexico so they are not comfortable, and be organized defensively, they’ll fold. Cliche but works. Noone in CCAF can out-possess Mexico.
Canada’s D looked pretty faulty.
If they held strong to the half, it would have been interesting.
IF we get there, our guys will be up to task vs. Mexico.
Let’s get there though 🙂
“The best way to destroy your enemy is to make him your friend…..Abraham Lincoln”. Admiration is different from Support, and if you question my loyalty, then you must be new to the site. Just not a fan of mediocrity and will not bend over to give it a different look. crap is crap. simple
I will confirm Bizzy is a definitely a fan. I’m not sure about the comment about mediocrity though based on his love of Wando. Tata was never coming here his comments about the US job were to purely drive up his price to Mexico. In Mexico he has a squad that has a good shot at the quarters with a shot at better in Qatar, the US needs a lot of players to progress to reach that level.
Hahaha….thank you Johnnyrazor, but nothing mediocre about a resume like this:
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“Wondolowski was MLS’s top scorer in the 2010 and 2012 seasons, also being named the 2012 Most Valuable Player, and has become one of the top strikers in Major League Soccer. As of August 19, 2017, Wondolowski is also the only player in league history to have scored ten or more goals in nine consecutive seasons. And of course, he is the highest scorer in the competition’s history, as well as the only player in league history to score 150 or more regular-season goals. ”
….PUT SOME RESPECT ON THE NAME!!!!! hahaha ??
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Those are titles Altidore will NEVER hold. As a matter of fact Chris “retiree” Wondolowski is the highest scoring American currently in 2019 MLS SEASON. Even at the retiring stages of his career he has scored more goals than Altidore, against the same CONCACAF defenders in MLS that blank out the players on the USMNT,…and did I say he has CURRENTLY scored more goals this season than ANY OTHER AMERICAN PLAYER IN MLS ????….. hmmmmm it’s not his fault the USMNT is not built to have a poacher on the team as you can only have one player that does nothing on the team for extensive periods of time and Bradley has already claimed that spot ?♂️
That was a pretty long response for what was clearly a joke. Relax my friend.
damn….totally didn’t see it. My bad….lol
I probably should have added an lol myself and maybe some emojis ???