2015 Gold Cup Betting – USA vs. Panama

USA (-162) vs Panama (+425), Draw (+290)

After two draws in their first two games at the 2015 Gold Cup, Panama needs a win against Team USA in order to guarantee a spot in the knockout phase of the 12-team tournament. The teams are set to meet tonight at Sporting Park in Kansas City (9:30 PM Eastern Time) as part of the third and last set of fixtures in Group A.

Panama have to be disappointed with their showing to date. They let their first two games slip away in the final minutes and now are forced to earn the full-three points against the uber-tough Americans on home soil in order to earn a spot in the quarterfinals.  The Panamanians had the win in their pocket in their debut against Haiti but conceded the tying goal in the 86th minute; it was the same story against Honduras as the Catrachos found the tie in 81st minute. Both games ended in 1-1 draws.

Hernan Gomez’ squad is now winless in its last four outings (0-3-1) dating back to the preparation games before the tournament; their winless streak includes an embarrassing 4-0 loss to Ecuador. The last time Panama won was back in April when they beat Costa Rica (2-1) in a friendly.

The host Americans are the favorite, not only for tonight’s game, but for the tournament as a whole. They entered the Gold Cup playing some of their best soccer ever, but haven’t carried the same level of play into their first two tournament games – despite winning both. Jürgen Klinsmann’s men beat Honduras (2-1) on a brace from Clint Dempsey and edged out Haiti (1-0), but they were nowhere close to the form they showed when they beat the Netherlands (4-3) and Germany (2-1) in their recent trip to Europe.

Given the condensed schedule of the Gold Cup, Klinsmann will be looking to get some fresh blood into his lineup for tonight’s game, in all likelihood.

“There’s a tricky situation … especially now in the Gold Cup you play every three days the group games which is a very, very short turnaround for every team,” Klinsmann said at his press conference on Thursday. “We think through that. We also still see a lot of competition going on in our own team. There are quite a lot of fifty-fifty situations going on the table.

Looking at the trends, Team USA have won eight games in a row at the Gold Cup and six straight overall. The United States have also won the last six games in the series against Panama. The last time they met at the Gold Cup was in the final two years ago when Team USA squeaked out a 1-0 win to earn their fifth tournament title.

In the props, Dempsey is the favorite to open the scoring, sitting at 10/3, followed by Chris Wondolowski at 4/1 and Jozy Altidore at 9/2. For Panama, striker Blas Perez leads the way, but is at a high 10/1; offensive midfielder Luis Tejada is close behind at 11/1.

The US performance so far has left something to be desired. But that goes double for Panama. Take the Americans – who are likely to feature some eager new faces in their lineup – to win a close game.

Pick: USA -162.

(Photo credit: Steindy (talk) 21:33, 22 November 2013 (UTC) (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. Photo has been cropped.)