15th CONCACAF Gold Cup kicks off in Rose Bowl

Canada defeat Martinique 4-0 and Mexico defeat Cuba 7-0 in the two opening matches of the 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup in the Rose Bowl, Pasadena.

It’s looking good early on for both Canada and Mexico to advance from Group A to the Quarter Finals as they both showed a significant difference in quality above that of their opponents Martinique and Cuba respectively. Two teams from each of the four groups qualify for the quarter-finals, with the tournament being expanded in 2019 from 12 teams to 16.

On my way to the stadium this afternoon I ended up sharing a taxi with some Canadian fans. It turned out they were relatives of Canadian striker Liam Millar! The 19-year old Liverpool forward has been on loan since the end of January to Scottish side Kilmarnock. It was good, therefore, to see him come on as a substitute for the last 20 minutes of the match, just after fellow Scottish-based player Scott Arfield (who plays for Glasgow Rangers) scored Canada’s 4^th goal.

My taxi-sharing acquaintances were amongst a very sparse crowd to watch their match, which kicked off at 16:30 local time. In contrast, however, the Mexican fans (many of whom live in California) packed out much of the 90,000-capacity Rose Bowl stadium just a couple of hours later.

The Mexico v Cuba match has just finished shortly before 21:00 (local time) which means I have a couple of hours to get across to LAX to catch my 1am flight to Costa Rica for the next two matches in the CONCACAF Gold Cup tomorrow afternoon…