Mexico vs Cuba Predictions

The 2019 Gold Cup has an early mismatch, as Mexico are up against Cuba. It’s no surprise that the Islanders are outsiders going into this clash in the North American championships. Cuba are aiming to follow up on their quarter-final place at the competition in 2015, but they failed to qualify two years ago. They head into this opener on the back of a loss, so will we see the Mexicans rack up an impressive victory to get their summer off to a great start?

It seems that Mexico are making a push for glory this summer, having made a few changes over the last few months. We’ve seen some experimental squads from the Mexicans of late, but this group has a more experienced edge to it. That’s obviously not great news for Cuba, while Mexico will have their heights set higher than just an opening day win. They’ve won three of the last five Gold Cups, can they continue their lead over the US with another run to glory in this competition?

Cuba come into this game having played a few smaller nations in preparation, but they lost their last game 2-1 to Haiti in the qualifiers for the CONCACAF Nations League. While they’ve done well against some of the sides around them in qualifying for that competition, their recent friendly record is poor. No one is expecting a great showing from Cuba, but how will they fare in this clash?

These two met at the 2015 Gold Cup, which saw Mexico secure a 6-0 victory. They won the clash before that 5-0, with their last four meetings seeing Mexico win 17-1 on aggregate. That adequately sums up the gap between the major sides in North America and the rest, with Mexico bringing some good talent to this tournament. They include Wolves man Raúl Jiménez and LA Galaxy’s Jonathan dos Santos.

Cuba come here with a poor tournament record behind them, as they’ve conceded six in three of their last five games at the tournament. Since 2007 they’ve conceded five goals or more in seven of 12 matches, twice against Mexico. Meanwhile, Mexico have won their last four games scoring a total of 13 goals against some solid sides. That has us backing Mexico with a -4 handicap in this clash.