| Group A | Group B | Group C | |||
| 1 | Mexico | 1 | Honduras | 1 | United States |
| 2 | Costa Rica | 2 | Jamaica | 2 | Canada |
| 3 | El Salvador | 3 | Guatemala | 3 | Panama |
| 4 | Cuba | 4 | Grenada | 4 | Guadeloupe |
| Knockout Stage | |||||
| A2 | Costa Rica | ||||
| B2 | Jamaica | A2 | Costa Rica | ||
| A1 | Mexico | ||||
| A1 | Mexico | A1 | Mexico | ||
| B3 | Guatemala | ||||
| Champions: Mexico | |||||
| B1 | Honduras | ||||
| C2 | Canada | C2 | Canada | ||
| C1 | United States | ||||
| C1 | United States | C1 | United States | ||
| A3 | El Salvador | ||||
What's all this then?
As an experiment, I've decided to post daily predictions of how the Gold Cup's going to turn out after each day of matches. Now that each group has one game in, it seems like a great time to start.
The purpose isn't to show how clever I am; indeed, the opposite will probably happen. I'm just interested to see how my predictions evolve over the course of the tournament. At this stage, a third of the way through the group stage, most of us probably think we have a decent handle on most of these teams. Well, I want to find out. So here's my prediction for today, complete and unedited through the end of the tournament. Then we'll see if anything changes tomorrow.
Notes on predictions for June 11: I hope Jamaican fans at least feel a little embarrassed by their 2-0 win over Guatemala yesterday. They dove their way to a completely undeserved red card against the Guats, they flopped and wasted time and then, just to make me hate them more, they went for a bunch of dirty tackles and clips. Who'd have thought that Jamaica would feel like they had to play rough to shut down Guatemala? That's what happened, though, and a pretty even game that was leaning Guatemala's way has turned into a Jamaican victory.
The questions in Group B are now a) what will El Salvador's goal differential look like in Group A?, and b) will Honduras beat Jamaica? If Honduras wins against Jamaica, they win the group on seven points. If they don't, they're second (maybe third if they really get creamed)
I have Honduras beating Jamaica (the Hondos can dive with anybody and I'm still not sold at all on the Reggae Boyz), putting them first on seven points and Jamaica second on six. So what happens to Guatemala? They're on a -2 goal difference right now, which isn't bad compared to El Salvador's -5 in Group A. Cuba and Grenada both suck. If Guatemala wins against Grenada and El Salvador wins against Cuba (both likely), El Salvador would need to improve their goal differential by three compared to whatever Guatemala does or the Guats would be guaranteed a place in the knockout round. And if Panama or Guadeloupe can't get to four points (hint: they probably can't), the whole point is moot anyway.