USA 7/4 favourites to win third consecutive title
Spain will vouch for the credentials of the United States of America football team. After all, Vicente Del Bosque’s team were on the verge of breaking the record for unbeaten games played, before Bob Bradley’s team beat them in the semi-finals of the Confederations Cup. They nearly landed another coup against Brazil in the final, leading 2-0 at half-time before running out of steam and losing 3-2 to the five-time World Cup winners. Nevertheless, they won’t have teams of this calibre to beat over the next three weeks, and it’s for this reason that they’re as short as 19/20 (Sportingbet) to land the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the fourth successive occasion. Bet365 are one of the few firms prepared to take them on, going 7/4 about them in the outright market.
As if the States needed it, they have home advantage with the competition taking place at venues such as the Soldier Field in Chicago and the Giants Stadium in New Jersey. It just comes down to how seriously they’re prepared to take this competition, with Bob Bradley prepared to ring in the changes and field several second-string players for this event. For the US, it’s all about looking ahead to August’s World Cup qualifying match against Mexico, and it’s the latter team who might well take advantage of this relaxed approach. Expekt go 2/1 about a team who recently showed their Jekyll and Hyde character by thrashing Venezuela 4-0 before drawing 0-0 with Guatemala.
While the quartet of Guadeloupe (150/1 bet365), Haiti (250/1 Skybet), Grenada (500/1 Stan James) and Nicaragua (750/1 Skybet) are unlikely to make it beyond the group stages, there are half a dozen teams who might have claims as far as the Gold Cup is concerned. Costa Rica are an interesting young side who easily beat the US in San Jose last month and deserve to be respected. Coach Rodrigo Kenton may be echoing Bradley’s comments about this tournament being a low priority, yet he has named a full-strength team which indicates they will be tough to beat. They top the CONCACAF World Cup qualifying group and might start taking things a little more seriously if they make the later stages!
Amid the recent triumphs for the US and Mexico, you’ll find Canada were victorious in the year 2000 and the Canucks (66/1 Stan James) easily despatched Guatemala 3-0 to warm up for this tournament in perfect fashion. They will be seeking retribution for their controversial semi-final loss to their neighbours in 2007, although this is a team which didn’t make the final World Cup qualifying stage. At least they won’t have that as an excuse for resting players! Honduras (14/1 Sportingbet) should probably be respected considering they currently occupy an automatic qualifying spot, with Jamaica also likely to put in a strong showing not that Theodore Whitmore is back at the managerial helm. The former Hull City player has not lost a match during his six games in charge, with El Salvador (50/1 Betfred) also likely to contend for a spot in the last eight.