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CONCACAF is becoming an ultra defense minded region. Couple months back when I saw a friendly between USA and Guatemala it struck me how much more focused Guatemala was in not letting the USA play. They played with a high back line and of course the USA was doing the same but in the end Guatemala was much more physical in midfield and played a high risk game with the offside trap as their ace in the pocket, they gave up one goal instead of their usual four. Their counter attack was also causing more headaches for the USA than they could have ever expected from Guatemala in years gone by.
In the game against Switzerland Jamaica with it's little toothless team stifled the more illustrious Swiss opponents completely in the second half as Bora planted his back line almost on the half line and inserted some hard men in midfield...
Everybody is playing that way now. Watch this Gold Cup how many big scores so far? Most teams except Cuba are very polished in defense and well prepared to cut out attacks way before the ball gets into their defensive third - there is no more 'shooting gallery' for the likes of the USA and Mexico against the tradionally weaker teams - this will make for one ugly set of games when qualifiers come around and more of the heavy weights will be upset if they cant win big at home. Panama is being set up perfectly for the new approach in CONCACAF they don't need too many chances to score - I think they had 5 goals from seven shots in their first two games of the Gold Cup so far...
In the game against Switzerland Jamaica with it's little toothless team stifled the more illustrious Swiss opponents completely in the second half as Bora planted his back line almost on the half line and inserted some hard men in midfield...
Everybody is playing that way now. Watch this Gold Cup how many big scores so far? Most teams except Cuba are very polished in defense and well prepared to cut out attacks way before the ball gets into their defensive third - there is no more 'shooting gallery' for the likes of the USA and Mexico against the tradionally weaker teams - this will make for one ugly set of games when qualifiers come around and more of the heavy weights will be upset if they cant win big at home. Panama is being set up perfectly for the new approach in CONCACAF they don't need too many chances to score - I think they had 5 goals from seven shots in their first two games of the Gold Cup so far...