Unlike the World Cup, the CONCACAF Gold Cup often is contested by B and C teams due to vacation, injuries and youth callups.
鈥淲e have a lot of young players that need more opportunities to play real minutes," Canada coach Jesse Marsch said ahead of this year's championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean. 鈥淭here鈥檚 a lot ways I think to use the tournament to broaden our player pool and to strengthen what we鈥檙e doing with our team.鈥�
Defending champion Mexico opens the 16-nation event Saturday against the Dominican Republic in a first-round group that also includes Costa Rica and Suriname. The reeling United States, on its , starts Sunday against Trinidad and Tobago, then plays invited guest Saudi Arabia and Haiti.
Canada is grouped with Honduras, El Salvador and Curacao, and Panama is together with Jamaica, Guatemala and Guadeloupe.
鈥淲e have the obligation of being the favorites. We have to accept that title,鈥� Javier Aguirre, hired last summer for his third stint as Mexico's coach, said through a translator.
Mexico has won nine Gold Cups, . The U.S. has won seven, , and Canada won in 2000. The tournament will be played at the same time as the , which has been given priority for players by FIFA.
鈥淚t鈥檚 not to say that if someone isn鈥檛 here now they won鈥檛 be here next year,鈥� Aguirre said. 鈥淪o many things can happen in a year.鈥�
Gold Cup matches will be played at . The .
El Tri will be missing forwards Hirving 鈥淐hucky鈥� Lozano and Henry Mart铆n, who have hamstring injuries.
Canada is without star winger Alphonso Davies, who tore his right ACL during the CONCACAF Nations League third-place game against the U.S. on March 23.
The U.S. roster is notable for the missing as much as the present. The Americans are without star (wanted time off); Yunus Musah (personal reason not disclosed); Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, Gio Reyna (headed to the Club World Cup); Antonee Robinson, and (injured); and (regaining fitness).
鈥淚 don鈥檛 think there鈥檚 any denying that some of our performances have fallen short over the past year to 18 months,鈥� defender Walker Zimmerman said. 鈥淲hen you look at Gold Cup and you look at some players maybe having their first experience with Gold Cup or even new guys coming into the team in general, it鈥檚 always such a great opportunity to have a month in front of a staff, get a lot of quality trainings in together and find yourself hopefully getting into a rhythm of playing multiple games where you can put everything on the line to try and make a World Cup team in a year鈥檚 time.鈥�
The U.S. has won its group in 16 of 17 Gold Cups, along with a second-place finish to Panama in 2011, and its group stage record is 40 wins, one loss and five draws.
American players are aware of the criticism of their play since the 2022 World Cup.
鈥淲hat you see online, all that media, all the opinions, it鈥檚 impossible this day not to see it,鈥� defender John Tolkin said Friday. 鈥淲e have a huge opportunity right now to kind of change the narrative and, yeah, set the focus towards the World Cup coming up next summer, and that鈥檚 to win this tournament.鈥�
___
AP soccer:
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
