Jamaica and Guatemala are bound to meet in the opening match of their CONCACAF Gold Cup campaigns. The game is scheduled for 17 June at 3 am, at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
The Jamaican national team comes to the United States hoping to at least match their result from two years ago, when they reached the semi-finals of the competition before eventually being eliminated by Mexico. Jamaica are in good form ahead of their first match at the tournament, with four wins in their last five games.
On the other hand, Guatemala's goal is to get out of their group, which won't be easy since Panama, the finalists from the last Gold Cup, are also in the group. So, Guatemala's chances of finishing ahead of them or Jamaica are slim, but they are a solid team and could potentially cause an upset.
How the bookies view it: Jamaica favoured by the bookies
Considering the difference in quality between these two teams, we expected Jamaica to be the favourites, but we were pleasantly surprised to see that they're not as heavy favourites as we thought they would be, with 5/6 odds on their win at Boylesports.
Meanwhile, Guatemala winning has odds of 3/1 and a draw is priced at 9/4, all at Boylesports.
Recent head-to-head: Jamaica high on confidence
Jamaica and Guatemala met just a few days ago in the World Cup qualifiers. Jamaica hosted this match and they were quite dominant in it, finishing the game with a 3-0 win.
In the last five H2H meetings between these teams, Jamaica have three wins, Guatemala one, with one match ending in a draw.
Players to watch: Can Brown repeat his performance from last time?
As we mentioned above, just a few days ago Jamaica beat Guatemala 3-0, with Warner Brown scoring a brace in that match. The young forward who plays for Arnett Gardens in the Jamaican championship only has seven caps for the national team so far, but he also already has four goals.
Along with Demarai Gray and Leon Bailey, Brown will get a chance to spearhead Jamaica's attack and if they can be as lethal as they did in their last duel with Guatemala, we could see a similar outcome. Bailey missed a penalty in that match, but he is the team's second-best scorer behind Gray, so Bailey to score in this game at 11/4 odds at bet365 sounds enticing.
Predicted line-ups
With both teams entering the tournament without any major absences, we expect to see similar lineups to the previous duel between them, especially when it comes to Jamaica's starting lineup. Guatemala could look to make some changes to try and avoid the same faith this time around.
Jamaica: Blake, Latibeaudiere, Lowe, King, Bell, Russell, Morrison, Campbell, Gray, Bailey, Brown
Guatemala: Hagen, Herrera, Pinto, Ardon, Aguilar, Castellanos, Saravia, Santis, Escobar, Ramirez, Lom
Anything else catch the eye?
In the last 10 H2H meetings between these teams, Jamaica failed to score at least two goals only three times. They have also scored two or more goals in four of their last five matches across the board.
With that in mind, we quite like Jamaica over 1.5 total goals at even odds at Boylesports.
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