Jamaica’s Reggae Boyz kick-started their CONCACAF Gold Cup campaign with a come-from-behind 2-1 win over Guadeloupe at PayPal Park in San Jose, California, USA on Friday night.

Tim Ambrose gave Guadeloupe a 32nd-minute lead from a smartly taken corner kick. But Jamaica struck back with two goals in four minutes.

Leon Bailey, who had hit the post and crossbar earlier, pulled the Reggae Boyz level in the 41st minute, driving home a low shot from a Warner Brown pass.

It was the seventh goal for Jamaica from 38 games for the Aston Villa winger.

Then Jon Russell netted his second goal for Jamaica in the 45+4 minutes, pushing the Reggae Boyz to their first win in the 2025 Gold Cup and up to three points.

Guadeloupe, which was losing their second consecutive game, remained at the bottom pointless.

Jamaica will meet Panama on Tuesday in what is expected to be a top-of-the-table clash to decide the group winners.

But based on their below-par displays so far, the Reggae Boyz will be hard pressed to beat this well-oiled Panamanian team.

Jamaica’s head coach Steve McClaren said he was satisfied with the first-half display in which the Reggae Boyz turned the game around. “We always focus on performance, and I thought the first half was excellent. Despite going down, we dominated possession 60-40,” he noted.

“We saw them play against Panama, and they did the same thing. They went man-to-man and caused Panama problems, and they had quite a few chances against Panama. So, we knew that they would do that, but we lost composure, and we lost shape and structure,” said McClaren.

“We didn’t cope with the physicality of the man-to-man, and instead of playing over the press and over the man-to-man, we played into it, which caused problems,” he highlighted