US Men’s National Team to Face Familiar Opponent in KC for the Gold Cup

Children’s Mercy Park will host the CONCACAF Gold Cup for the first time since 2015, but it’ll be a familiar opponent that will be on the field to face the US Men’s National team that night, as CONCACAF announced the draw for this year’s competition. The US in Group D will be taking on 2018 World Cup qualifiers, Panama on June 26th at Children’s Mercy Park. Back in 2015 the two teams played to a 1-1 draw in Kansas City during the Gold Cup with a second half goal by Michael Bradley canceling out a first half goal by Blas Perez.

The other two teams in the group with the US and Panama are Trinidad and Tobago and Guyana. The match up with Trinidad and Tobago will be full of storylines as it was the Soca Warriors who eliminated the United States from qualifying for the 2018 World Cup with their 2-1 win in Trinidad back in 2017.

The US though will kick off their group on June 18th at Allianz Field in St. Paul, Minnesota against Guyana and will then travel to Cleveland for the match up with Trinidad on the 22nd before making their way to Kansas City to face Panama on the 26th.

This will be the eighth time that the US will play a game in Kansas City with the US holding a 6-0-1 (W-L-D) record in the prior seven games. Five of the prior seven games have been hosted at Children’s Mercy Park, with the last game being a friendly against Bolivia back in 2016 that the US won 4-0 (where Christian Pulisic scored his first full international goal for the US).

Prior US results in Kansas City: