🏆 Honduras' hope, Cuba's changes & more: Five things to watch in Gold Cup qualification
In five days, the field will be completed. Who's in? Who will miss out?
In five days, the field for this summer’s Concacaf Gold Cup will go from nine to 16, the full field.
Already qualified are League B winners (Haiti, El Salvador, Curacao, Dominican Republic), a guest team (Saudi Arabia) and the four Nations League semifinalists (United States, Mexico, Canada, Panama).
Looking for what to watch in tonight’s Nations League semifinals? That newsletter went out Wednesday!
Fourteen teams are fighting for their life to make the continental championship, with the winners
Some are traditional powers expecting not only to make the Gold Cup but also to contend for a place in the World Cup. Others are upstart
All that matters is what they do over these two matches, the first legs of which take place Friday at the lower seeded team’s home site, the second legs of which take place Tuesday.
From Central American powers to Caribbean contenders, here’s what I’m watching in these matchups:
🇭🇳 Honduras must avoid collapse without fans
At this time last year, Honduras was in a playoff against Costa Rica to decide one of the final places at the 2024 Copa América. There was hope among Honduras fans, with beloved ex-manager Reinaldo Rueda returning to the country he took to the World Cup in 2010.
Yet, there were many key absences in that match, and Los Catrachos never looked like overcoming them, losing 3-1 to Costa Rica. Honduras started strong with a pair of wins in World Cup qualification and had a decent Nations League campaign that saw it meet Mexico in the CNL quarterfinals.
Once there, it topped El Tri in the first leg, but Honduras will pay for what happened that November night in San Pedro Sula, when Mexico manager Javier Aguirre left the field bloodied by a can thrown from the stands.
Honduras now will play the second leg of their series with Bermuda behind closed doors in Tegucigalpa and must find a way past the Caribbean squad without the support of its fans.
Los Catrachos thumped Bermuda in their previous visit, winning 6-1 in a World Cup qualification match. This one feels like it will be tighter, as Rueda himself noted, even with Bermuda missing regulars like Dante Leverock and Harry Twite to injury and Nahki Wells and Kole Hall for what sounds like clubs asking the players to stay.
“They’re going to be two difficult games against a Bermuda that has gotten new players involved,” he said after a friendly loss to Guatemala. “There are seven or eight players they called who weren’t there when we played last year.
“The idea is that with our players from abroad - Danil (Maldonado), Deiby (Flores), Luis (Palma) and the others who come in - we’ll change the look, the dynamic, change what Honduras looks like and show our collective game and cohesion. It’ll be a hard match. The first half was 1-1 and it was tough. They’re really going to push us.”
Even still, Honduras fans have plenty of hope they’ll be able to qualify for this summer tournament - even if they won’t be there in person to support the team.
🇨🇺 Could Cuba’s latest shift push Trinidad and Tobago?
Cuba’s self-imposed regulations about who is eligible to call up for the national team handicaps the team’s opportunity to play to its full potential. A few years ago, a wise man wrote in the New York Times about Cuba calling up players who moved abroad but never fell afoul of the government for World Cup qualification.
Another shift is in the works, with the country’s governing bodies allowing two nationalized players to be called. Alessio Raballo, an 18-year-old born in Italy and Camilo Pinillo, a 20-year-old born in Belgium, both have obtained Cuban nationality and are in manager Yunielys Castillo’s squad to meet Trinidad and Tobago.
While that’s a significant shift and could lead to many more new recruits in the future, the bigger change from three years ago is how many Cubans have been able to carve out decent careers off the island, raising their individual level and the level of the national team. Karel Espino has been with Comunicaciones since 2021 and is a key figure in the midfield. Center back Yosel Piedra starts for AD San Carlos in Costa Rica and will start for Cuba. With fellow center back CaVaFe injured, Piedra will have a new partner at the back. He likely will be joined in defense by Karel Perez, a 19-year-old who moved from Alajuelense to Gil Vicente’s U-23 team in January after participating in the Concacaf U-20 tournament and can play fullback or center back.
These teams just met in Nations League play, with the Soca Warriors drawing the first match and winning the second, 3-1, plus Dwight Yorke is now the manager steering the ship.
But Levi Garcia once again is missing a camp because of an injury after appearing on the initial list.
“Levi Garcia—that’s a huge blow,” Yorke told reporters. “We all know how important Levi is to this team, so this is definitely a setback.
“We received information from their side and their medical staff confirming that he had sustained a minor injury. Our own medical team also assessed the situation, and unfortunately, that appears to be the case.”
Kevin Molino also will not play for reasons Yorke declined to elaborate on.
Change comes slowly in Cuba. Even if it’s on the way, it may not be enough to make up the gaps that existed just a few months ago. Still, this is an intriguing series for many reasons and could be more competitive than expected.
🇨🇷 Piojo eases into it with Ticos
Miguel Herrera made his debut as Costa Rica manager in a friendly against the United States, but things start to get serious Friday with the Ticos in Belize.
With all respect to The Jaguars, this is the most lopsided matchup on paper. That’s reflected in the seeding, with Costa Rica first and Belize 14th of the Gold Cup hopefuls.
Belize is here thanks to an impressive couple of results against French Guiana in November but their Nations League group that included Turks and Caicos Islands and Anguilla was … win-able to put it kindly.
Costa Rica expects to roll past Belize and compete with teams like the ones in the Nations League Final Four rather than in the Gold Cup qualification round. If Herrera isn’t able to get that out of his squad, it will be a very short tenure leading the Ticos.
He should be fine. The new generation continues to work its way to maturity. Up top, Alonso Martinez already is picking up where he left off last year with three goals in the young MLS season, and Manfred Ugalde also has scored since the recent resumption of the Russian league.
In the midfield, Orlando Galo is back from his long-term injury, and holdover Francisco Calvo still is on the back line but he has promising young faces around him as well.
The reality is, Costa Rica should be able to top Belize with a squad made up only of domestic-based players. They have their full complement of players in this camp, though. Here’s the players’ chance to impress Herrera, and Herrera’s chance to begin impressing the fans.
🇬🇹 Guatemala needs to get it done - noise or not
Since his arrival in 2021, Luis Fernando Tena has stated his goal as Chapines manager is to get Guatemala to the World Cup for the first time ever.
Getting to the quarterfinals in the 2023 Gold Cup indicated progress and Guatemala may be the team that was dealt the harshest hand by the Swiss system that saw it play Costa Rica twice in Nations League A - yielding a home draw and a 3-0 defeat in San Jose.
Just when it felt that everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet, D.C. United defender Aaron Herrera pulled out for these matches - sparking criticism from players not called into the roster if nothing concrete from the actual camp. There also is the wrinkle that Guyana is ‘hosting’ at a neutral site.
Tena will hope that plays out as an advantage; however, the absence of a partisan crowd could create an odd environment that allows Guyana’s squad full of UK- and US-based players to find a first-leg advantage. They also will host at Comunicaciones’ stadium instead of the Estadio Doroteo Guamuch Flores with the national stadium undergoing renovations.
If a country is going to compete for a place in the World Cup, it also should take its Gold Cup place as a given. That must be the attitude for Guatemala, whether there’s noise around player decisions, venues or anything else.
🇫🇷 The French Missed Connection?
For non-FIFA members Martinique and Guadeloupe, the Gold Cup is the top tournament possible to reach. The World Cup is off the table, since the Overseas Departments are still technically French - and often send players who are eligible for their islands to the France national team instead.
Yet, it’s feasible that neither will be able to break through with difficult matchups and some player availability issues causing headaches for their managers.
Karl Fabien is not in the Martinique squad after a recent transfer within the Bulgarian league and QPR central midfielder Jonathan Varane is injured.
Key players like forward Brighton Labeau, defender Boris Moltenis and veteran midfielder Cyril Mandouki are in the squad, but manager Marc Collat has a lot of work to do to get into the Gold Cup.
Martinique meets a Suriname team that, while without starting forward Sheraldo Becker and goalkeeper Étienne Vaessen this window, still will start a lineup entirely based in European first divisions (plus, likely, QPR left back Kenneth Paal). That is not a guarantee of success, as we’ve seen in the past, but it doesn’t hurt.
Guadeloupe is more at full strength, though defender Andreaw Gravillon’s absence means it won’t be the same defense that faced Martinique in November. Manager Jocelyn Angloma brings in forward Thierry Ambrose, who has four goals in his last three matches for Kortrijk in Belgium. He’ll be joined by Matthias Phaëton in attack, goalkeeper Davy Rouyard and Union Berlin defender Jerome Roussillon.
But Nicaragua is eagerly targeting the Gold Cup, with reports in the country emphasizing how much money the federation is pouring in to assist manager Marco Antonio “Fantasma” Figueroa, including the charter flight that took the team to Guadeloupe.
That investment no doubt is assisted by the newly announced sponsorship with beloved rum brand Flor de Caña. With investment comes expectation, something Guadeloupe has little of.
Figueroa and his staff likely are more dependent on players from Nicaragua’s big two - Real Esteli and Diriangen - than they’d like to be, but a dearth of players excelling abroad means just five players playing outside Central America are included.
While both Martinique and Guadeloupe made the 2023 Gold Cup, neither looks like the favorite to make a return.