The Gold Cup, the equivalent of the America's Cup or European Championship

July is synonymous with rest in most of the world for players. Moments where you take a break before entering a grueling season. However, elsewhere on the planet, this is the right time to play one of the official competitions unknown to the general public, especially European, Gold Cup and Gold Cup.

This competition image and likeness of what a European Championship or a Copa America brings together 12 CONCACAF teams (Glen, USA, Mexico, Guatemala, The Savior, Cuba, Belice, Panama, Haiti, Trinidad and Tobago, Belice, Martinique, Jamaica, that for three weeks on a face based on a league of three groups with four teams tournament where the first and second plus the two best third pass to the knockout quarterfinal.

The event was created in 1991 and its periodicity is biannual being provided US headquarters, with the exception of 1993 y 2003 where he also shared with Mexico. Precisely, the Aztec country is the great dominator of the competition with 6 gimped, for the 4 US or Canada only achieved by, the three states that have raised the cup.

Until 2007, the event allowed the presence of invited teams like Colombia, Peru and Brazil that often came with the best of his artillery (Romario, Cafu, Edmundo) but he could never lift the cup. Since then no longer it allowed to be exclusive to the countries of North and Central America (although the latter should play a stage before qualifying to see who access the famous competition).

The champion has the prize contest the Confederations Cup, although from 2017 the system of choice to go to that event will be through a play-off between the last two champions of the competition. I must say for the uninitiated, the Gold Cup is completely independent of the qualifiers for the World Cup or Hexagonal, curiously sometimes overlapping matches within days of the same competition.

Although often, especially when the Confederations Cup matches, Mexico and the United States do not usually take their best men, the fact is that the rise of this tournament is growing. Like it shows, the fact that it is easy to see full stadiums with more than 90.000 people in their stands. The Mexico-Panama of the first day illustrates this fact better than anyone.