To kick off the Group Stage of the 2023 Gold Cup, Mexico will take on Honduras at Houston’s NRG Stadium. Overall, this will be their 44th encounter.
It’s no secret that Mexico are favored in these matchups, having won 26 of the previous 27 meetings between the two teams. Honduras have won seven games and drawn 10 others thus far.
As part of qualifying for the 2022 World Cup, their last meeting occurred on March 27, 2022, when El Tri came out on top, winning by a score of 1-0. When these two nations meet for the first time since then, in the 2023 Gold Cup, it promises to be an even more intriguing encounter.
Why is Mexico’s Diego Lainez missing the 2023 Gold Cup?
After having won the 2023 Liga MX Clausura with Tigres UANL, winger Diego Lainez is getting ready to end a hectic season by being left out of the Mexican National Team. Ahead of the June friendlies and CONCACAF’s Nations League finals and Gold Cup, the Mexican Federation released their provisional squad at the start of the month.
In preparation for the Nations League, the initial roster of 33 was reduced to the final 23, and the 23-year-old was thus one of the players cut from the roster. This will be the second time this season that Lainez has been left out of a major competition after being ruled out of the Qatar 2022 roster.