A confident Jamaican team will face Guatemala in Group C as the Reggae Boyz kick off their CONCACAF Gold Cup campaign tonight at the Dignity Health Sports Park, California, at 9:00 pm.

Jamaica are drawn in Group C alongside Panama, Guatemala and Guadeloupe for the 18th edition of the Confederation’s flagship men’s national team tournament being hosted in the United States.

This year’s Gold Cup features 16 national teams: the best 15 from the CONCACAF region, along with one guest team—Saudi Arabia.

The 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup will take place across 14 stadiums and 11 metropolitan areas in the United States and Canada, including five FIFA World Cup 2026 stadiums and three first-time hosts.

The Gold Cup will begin with a 16-team Group Stage—four groups of four teams each. After round-robin play, between June 14-24, the four group winners and four runners-up (eight teams in total) will advance to the Knockout Stage.

• Group A: Mexico, Costa Rica, Suriname, Dominican Republic
• Group B: Canada, Honduras, El Salvador, Curacao
• Group C: Panama, Jamaica, Guatemala, Guadeloupe
• Group D: United States, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia

The Gold Cup has been contested on 17 previous occasions. Mexico owns a tournament-record nine titles, followed by the United States with seven and Canada with one.

Jamaica will be making its 14th appearance in the tournament, with its best-placed finish being runners-up at the 2015 and 2017 editions.

Only last week, Jamaica defeated Guatemala 3-0 in Kingston in the World Cup Qualifiers, but according to coach Steve McClaren, this will be a different ball game.

“It will be a difficult game. We knew that before playing them last week. Tough opponent,” McClaren pointed out. “We caught them at a time because they had already qualified and made some changes, and we took advantage. We beat the team we had to beat, but it will be a completely different game, as we expect. It’s 0-0, so we will have to do it all again.”

In five Gold Cup meetings, Jamaica has never lost to Guatemala.

Jamaica will be at full strength and will look to the likes of Warner Brown, Leon Bailey, Demarai Gray, Richard King, Jonathan Russell and veteran goalkeeper Andre Blake for victory.