Mexico drawn in Group A for the 2021 Gold Cup

Mexico was drawn in Group A for the 2021 Gold Cup along with El Salvador, Curaçao, and the Preliminary Group 9 winner. The preliminary 9 will be played between Trinidad and Tobago, Montserrat, Cuba and French Guyana, with the winner getting the final spot in Group A. The preliminary matches will be played in July 2nd to the 6th, and the tournament is set to be played from July 10th to August 1. The matches and the cities (or even the country) were they will play are still not set.

The 2021 Gold Cup draw was held Monday night in Miami. Mexico was one of five teams seeded before the competition. Mexico was seeded in Group A while the United States was seeded in Group B, Costa Rica in Group C and Honduras and Qatar were seeded in Group D. The CONCACAF teams were seeded first in their respective groups while Qatar was 4D. Pot 2 had El Salvador, Canada, Jamaica and Panama. Pot 3 had Curaçao, Grenada, Martinique and Suriname. Finally Pot 4 had the three preliminary winners, which are set to play a week before the competition to see which teams make it.

Overall Mexico got a very lucky in the 2021 draw. El Tri got what most people expect to be the weakest of the Pot 2 group and the toughest of the Pot 3 group but lucked out in the Preliminary Group 9 winning group. Overall it should be the weakest group, while Group B (which has the United States, Canada, Martinique and potentially Haiti) or Group D (Honduras, Panama, Grenada and Qatar) battling for the Group of Death honor.

Still it’s tough to analyze without knowing which cities will host the games or the order in which the games will be played (something that is incredible how it’s wasn’t set up during the draw), although Mexico and the United States should be favored. That being said with 2021 being a World Cup qualifying year, they should probably be sending B teams especially with CONCACAF still going ahead with the CONCACAF Nations League. With no ticket to a Confederations Cup and with 2021 being heavily congested, it seems that even when it’s the 30th anniversary of the Gold Cup and with CONCACAF finally broadcasting a draw for the tournament, it should be the competition with less priority of the year for the big teams in the region.