IFFHS CONTINENTAL STATS - GOLD CUP
Picture : César Montes is the 3rd defender to score 3 goals in a single Gold Cup, following Kevin McKenna for Canada in 2002 and Demar Phillips for Jamaica in 2011.
Gold Cup statistics (Group stage, match-day 2)
*Mexico and Costa Rica have mathematically qualified for the quarter-finals and will decide the top spot in the group on Sunday.
Costa Rica vs Dominican Republic 2-1 (Group A)
*Costa Rica begin the Gold Cup with two wins for the third time in the last four editions (also in 2019 and 2021).
*Costa Rica have only come from behind to win once in the first 17 Gold Cups (vs Suriname on 16 July 2021), and in the first two matches of this edition, they have already done so twice: again vs Suriname (from 2-3 to 4-3) and now also vs the Dominican Republic (from 0-1 to 2-1).
*Costa Rica have for the first time come from behind to win a Gold Cup match after conceding the first goal of the match in the first 20 minutes. Of the previous 10 such occasions, they have lost in 8 and drawn in 2 (2-2 against South Korea on 17 February 2000 and 2-2 against Jamaica on 8 July 2015).
*Manfred Ugalde (Costa Rica) has scored already 3 penalties in this edition of Gold Cup.
In the history of competition, 3 other players scored 3+ goals from the spot in a single edition: Landon Donovan (USA) in 2007 (4), Gabriel Torres (Panama) in 2013 (3), and Andrés Guardado (Mexico) in 2015 (3).
*Manfred Ugalde became the 2nd Costa Rica player to score 3+ goals in his first two Gold Cup matches, after Paulo Wanchope who scored 4 in his debut against Cuba in 1998.
*Joao Urbáez (Dominican Republic), born in Spain, became the 2nd ever Spanish-born goal-scorer in the history of competition.
The first was Peter Federico, who scored also for the Dominican Republic, against Mexico (2-3) in the match-day 1 of this edition.
Suriname vs Mexico 0-2 (Group A)
*Mexico have already scored 4 goals from set pieces (all from corner kicks) in this year's Gold Cup, more than double any other team in the competition.
*In 3 of these 4 occasions, the goal-scorer was a defender César Montes who plays in his 4th edition of Gold Cup and has never scored in the competition before.
*César Montes is the 3rd defender to score 3 goals in a single Gold Cup, following Kevin McKenna for Canada in 2002 and Demar Phillips for Jamaica in 2011.
*César Montes's brace (in space of just 6 minutes) is the fastest by a defender in Gold Cup history, surpassing the 13 minutes taken for this by Demar Phillips to score 2 goals for Jamaica against Guatemala on 10 June 2011.
*Montes is actually doing the job of centre-forward Santi Giménez who continues his goal drought having scored 1 goal in his last 20 appearances for Mexico,and that was in the recent 4-2 friendly loss to Switzerland. In the competitive matches, he last scored for the national team 2 years ago, in the 2023 Gold Cup final (1-0 vs Panama).