Mexico earned its ninth Gold Cup title at SoFi Stadium on Sunday, beating Panama 1-0 thanks to a late winner from Santiago Giménez just four minutes after he was switched on.
Panama started the match bright and spent much of the early moments in the attacking third, including a second-minute combination play from Adalberto Carrasquilla and Ismael Díaz, but the momentum evened out midway through the first half. Mexico had perhaps the best chance of the match to score in the 43rd minute when Luis Romo and Jorge Sánchez took one shot after the other from close range, but Panama goalkeeper Orlando Mosquera made point-blank saves to keep the score level at halftime.
Mexico, though, began to take control of the match in the second half even if a go-ahead goal was hard to find. El Tri truly began to dominate the final by the 60th minute and got close to scoring when a header from Uriel Antuna was saved by Mosquera. Panama did have attacking bursts later in the half, but Mexico's defense handled the attempts with relative ease.
Some of Mexico's best chances were on either side of a strange decision in the 63rd minute when referee Hector Martinez gave Panama's Harold Cummings a second yellow card for what was perceived to be a foul on Orbelín Pineda. Roughly a minute later, Martinez reversed the punishment and the match resumed.
The champions finally got the breakthrough in the 88th minute thanks to Giménez. Pineda sent the ball towards the 22-year-old, who dashed into the center of the box and sent the ball past Mosquera. It was nearly a nervy finish for Mexico when the team conceded a freekick in the fifth minute of second-half stoppage time, but the shot was cleared out.
The Gold Cup victory provides a reprieve for Mexico during a brutal summer. The team lost 3-0 to the U.S. men's national team in the Nations League semifinals and fired head coach Diego Cocca after just seven matches in charge. Jaime Lozano came in quickly on an interim basis to coach the continental championship and can consider his first major task a success.
