While hardly impressing, the United States met their first challenge of the 2017 Gold Cup, winning Group B and sealing the simplest possible path to next week’s final. Tonight, the USMNT starts down that path with a match against El Salvador, a country they have historically been able to beat comfortably on a regular basis. The US has lost just once to Los Cuscatlecos, and that came all the way back in 1992.
However, as we learned during the shocking way the US went out during the last edition of this tournament, you don’t just get to advance based on past history.