USMNT will play Mexico in 2025 Gold Cup after El Tri beats Honduras | OneFootball

Three hours after the U.S. men's national team booked its place in the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup final, Mexico punched its ticket with a 1-0 win over Honduras in Wednesday's second semifinal.

El Tri's victory on the strength of Raúl Jiménez's 50th-minute tally means Mexico will face the United States for the second time since Mauricio Pochettino took over the USMNT program, and that there won't be a new champion of the 34-year-old event.

Mexico will be looking for its 10th title, while the United States its eighth at Sunday's final before what is expected to be a heavily pro-Mexican crowd in Houston. Canada is the only other nation to win the event, doing so in 2000.

Despite the two nations' dominance of the competition, this will only be their eighth meeting in the final. Mexico has taken the honors in five of seven previous finals meetings. The Americans won the most recent final clash between the teams, 1-0 on Miles Robison's dramatic header deep in extra time in 2021. When the two nations have met in the final, they have never gone to penalties.

USA vs. Mexico Gold Cup final meetings

Both teams have an identical 4-1-0 tournament record, with both sides drawing against Costa Rica. El Tri earned a 0-0 draw in their final group game against the Ticos, taking the top spot in Group A based on superior goal difference. The USMNT played to a 2-2 draw in their quarterfinal before winning a penalty shootout 4-3 over six kicks.

While Pochettino has fielded a squad without several established USMNT stars, including Christian Pulisic, Tim Weah, Weston McKennie and Antonee Robinson, Mexico boss Javier Aguirre has had most of his top players at his disposal, including Jimenez, Santi Gimenez and Edson Alvarez.

After a narrow 3-2 win over the Dominican Republic, Mexico has kept four consecutive clean sheets.