Canada vs Cuba 24/06/19

24 June 2019

Canada and Cuba will face-off at the Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte in contrasting circumstances. While the Canadians look to book tickets for the knockout stage, the Cubans are going after their elusive first points at the tournament.

Although the Canucks swept Martinique aside with a commanding 4-0 victory on the opening matchday, they’ve struggled to replicate the same performance against Mexico in the second round of fixtures, sustaining a 3-1 loss. As a result, they currently reside second in Group A and are likely to take on Costa Rica in the quarter-finals should they preserve the second place after this match. The aforementioned failure against El Tri has brought Canada’s seven-game winning streak to a halt, and it was also the first time since July 2017 that they’ve conceded over 1.5 goals per match. If Les Rouges win here, it will probably be to nil, considering seven of their previous eight wins have been accompanied by a clean sheet.

Meanwhile, nailed to the bottom of Group A, the Cubans have suffered two defeats in as many games at the tournament, allowing ten goals while struggling to hit the net once. They are now on a five-game losing run, having scored barely one goal across those fixtures. Moreover, Leones del Caribe have not only one of three teams that have yet to score at the Gold Cup this campaign, but they’ve also produced the joint-fewest shots on target (3). Cuba’s agony is unlikely to end here, considering they’ve lost all three of their previous H2Hs with Canada, conceding six goals while bagging only one in the process.