The United States Men’s National Team is set to face Guatemala in a tense Gold Cup semifinal on Wednesday in St. Louis.
The game is a big deal for the USMNT. After kicking off the summer with a pair of sobering losses to Turkiye (2-1) and Switzerland (4-0), Mauricio Pochettino’s men have bounced back in grand style to win back the support of their longtime fans. The USMNT’s last game — a roller-coaster ride of a Gold Cup quarterfinal against Costa Rica — drew over 32,000 fans to U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis and nearly three million viewers on network television. It’s finding momentum on and off the field for the first time in months.
But while this game is important for the USMNT, it’s arguably a much bigger draw for Guatemala. The Central American nation — ranked 106th in the world, between Comoros and Tanzania — is making its first appearance in the Gold Cup semifinals since 1996.
How? By squaring up to some of North and Central America’s best teams and beating them on merit. Guatemala kicked off its Gold Cup journey with a shocking 1-0 win over Jamaica, a team it hadn’t beaten since 2014, and a hard-fought loss to regional-heavyweight Panama.
A win over Guadeloupe on the final day of the group stage pushed Guatemala into the quarterfinals and a gritty, testy, utterly-deserved win over Canada pushed it directly into the semifinal path of the USMNT.