As international soccer tournaments go, the CONCACAF Gold Cup is a pretty strange thing.
You won’t find another event like it where teams can make six changes to their roster between the group stage and knockout rounds. It’s a huge advantage for the United States, which basically treated the group stage as a scouting platform for second-tier players.
There’s risk in that, of course, as the United States and Mexico can attest to. The Americans struggled past Martinique. Mexico couldn’t score against Jamaica, and needed a last-minute goal to put away Curaçao.
But both superpowers won their gambles, and won their groups.