2015 Gold Cup Betting – Haiti vs. Jamaica
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:39 am ESTPublished:
Haiti (+260) vs. Jamaica (+150), Draw (+210)
Two of the most surprising teams in the 2015 Gold Cup will square for a ticket to the semifinals tomorrow when Haiti clash against Jamaica at M&T Bank Stadium in Baltimore (8:00 PM Eastern).
Jamaica come in as favorites, which isn’t a surprise considering the “Reggae Boyz” won Group B with seven points after beating Canada (1-0) and El Salvador (1-0) and drawing with Costa Rica (2-2). Winfried Schäfer’s squad had the best tune-up schedule among the Gold Cup teams, playing three strong South American sides in the Copa America in the run up to the tourney. The competitive prep work is clearly paying dividends now.
It’s not all sunshine and roses for the Jamaican team, though, as they lost defender Alvas Powell for the remainder of the tournament. The Portland Timbers backliner shockingly decided to go back to his club team because he wasn’t getting enough playing time.
“I told him, your time is coming,” Schafer told the press. “Now we need him, he told me he don’t want to play. You have no chance when you think about I, I, I. No, it’s we that’s important; we, the team, that’s important.”
But even with Powell’s departure, Jamaica will come into tomorrow’s game with the stronger roster. The Haitians showed a lot of pluck in the Group Stage, beating Honduras (1-0) and drawing Panama (1-1), while dropping a tight game to Team USA (1-0). But the three tough matches clearly took their toll on the shallow squad; in their last match against Honduras, Haiti played extremely well for the first 45 minutes but then looked exhausted and struggled mightily to protect their 1-0 lead.
The recent results also favor Jamaica, as the teams faced off just last year in the Caribbean Cup with the Reggae Boyz cruising to a 2-0 win. Jamaica have also taken five of seven from Haiti dating back to 2003, with the other two ending in a draw.
Pick: Jamaica (+150).
(Photo credit: apasciuto (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo may appear cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
