Concacaf Gold Cup

The Gold Cup is held every two years. The tournament succeeded the CONCACAF Championship (1963–1989), with its inaugural edition being held in 1991.

CONCACAF Gold Cup

Organizing body	CONCACAF
Founded	1991; 33 years ago (1991)
Region	North America (Northern America, Central America, and the Caribbean)
Number of teams	16 (finals) 41 (eligible to enter qualification)
Qualifier for	FIFA Confederations Cup (1992–2017)
Related competitions	CONCACAF Championship
Current champion(s)	Mexico (9th title)
Most successful team(s)	Mexico (9 titles)
Website	concacaf.com/gold-cup
2023 CONCACAF Gold Cup

North American Football Union members Canada, United States and Mexico are the only three nations to have won the tournament.

Championships before CONCACAF

Before the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF) was formed in 1961, association football in the region was divided into smaller, regional divisions. The two main bodies consisted of the Confederación Centroamericana y del Caribe de Fútbol (CCCF) founded in 1938 (consisting of Central America and most of the Caribbean) and the North American Football Confederation (NAFC) founded in 1946 (consisting of the North American nations of United States, Mexico, Canada, and Cuba). Each confederation held its own competition, the CCCF Championship and the NAFC Championship. The CCCF held 10 championships from 1941 to 1961 with Costa Rica winning seven times. The NAFC held four championships in 1947 and 1949, and after 41 years of absence, in 1990 and 1991 for the North American zone as the North American Nations Cup with Mexico winning three times and Canada winning once.

CONCACAF Championship (1963–1989)

 

CONCACAF was founded in 1961 through the merging of NAFC and CCCF which resulted in a single championship being held for the continent. The first CONCACAF tournament was held in 1963 in El Salvador with Costa Rica becoming the first champion. The CONCACAF Campeonato de Naciones, as it was called, was held every two years from 1963 to 1973. The second tournament was held in Guatemala in 1965 when Mexico defeated the host country in the final of a six-team tournament. The 1967 competition was held in Honduras and saw a third champion crowned, Guatemala. Costa Rica won their second title as hosts in 1969, knocking off Guatemala, while two years later, Mexico won their second championship as the tournament moved to Trinidad and Tobago, the first time in the Caribbean. In 1973, the tournament kept the same format of six teams playing a single round-robin, but there were bigger stakes attached: CONCACAF's berth in the FIFA World Cup tournament in 1974. In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the host country pulled off an upset by winning the tournament and claiming a spot in the World Cup in West Germany.

With the Campeonato de Naciones doubling as the final World Cup qualifying tournament, the next two editions were held in Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Honduras in 1977 and 1981, respectively. In each case the host country was crowned champion and earned a spot in the World Cup. In 1985 and 1989, the winner of the World Cup qualifying tournament was again crowned Confederation champion. Canada and Costa Rica were named champions in 1985 and 1989, receiving a trophy.^{[better source needed]}

CONCACAF Gold Cup (since 1991)

In 1990, CONCACAF renamed and restructured the CONCACAF Championship as the CONCACAF Gold Cup, with the United States hosting the first competition in 1991, and hosting or co-hosting every subsequent iteration of the tournament (as of 2023). The host country was the inaugural champion of the eight-team tournament. Mexico dominated the remainder of the decade, winning three consecutive CONCACAF Gold Cup titles in 1993, 1996 and 1998.

In 1996, the Gold Cup field included its first guest team, the defending FIFA World Cup Champions Brazil. Guests were invited to participate in the six Gold Cup tournaments from 1996 to 2005. Starting with the 2000 Gold Cup, the tournament field was increased to twelve teams and for the 2007 tournament, the Gold Cup again was contested exclusively by nations within CONCACAF.

The 2007 Gold Cup hosts successfully defended their title beating Mexico in the final 2–1 in Chicago; Canada and Guadeloupe shared third place. Mexico won the 2009 Gold Cup by beating the United States 5–0. In the 2011 Gold Cup, Mexico defeated the USA 4–2 in the final while the USA won the 2013 Gold Cup by beating Panama 1–0.

Since the formation of the Gold Cup in 1991, the CONCACAF Championship has been won nine times by Mexico, seven times by the United States, and once by Canada. Runners-up include Brazil, Colombia, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Jamaica.

Before 2015, when the Gold Cup did not fall in the same year as the FIFA Confederations Cup, the winner, or highest-placed team that is a member of both CONCACAF and FIFA, qualified for the next staging of that tournament. In 2015, the winners of the previous two Gold Cups (the 2013 and 2015 editions) faced each other in CONCACAF Cup – a playoff to determine the CONCACAF entrant to the 2017 Confederations Cup.

In January 2017, Victor Montagliani announced the expansion of the Gold Cup from 12 to 16 teams, starting with the 2019 tournament. In November 2018, Costa Rica was announced as one of the hosts of the 2019 tournament, with a group B double-header set to be held at the Estadio Nacional. In April 2019, it was announced that Jamaica would host a doubleheader in group C at Independence Park.

The number of teams and the format of each final tournament have varied over the years. In most tournaments, the tournament consists of a round-robin group stage followed by a single-elimination knockout stage.

There has been interest from numerous sources to have the tournament held every four years to potentially increase the prestige, decrease player fatigue and better align with the upcoming European and South American calendars.

Ed.	Year	Hosts		Final				Third place playoff or losing semi-finalists				Number of teams
				Champions	Score	Runners-up		Third place	Score	Fourth place
1	1991	United States		United States	0–0 (a.e.t.) (4–3 p)	Honduras		Mexico	2–0	Costa Rica		8
2	1993	Mexico   United States		Mexico	4–0	United States		Costa Rica   Jamaica	1–1 (a.e.t.)	–		8
3	1996	United States		Mexico	2–0	Brazil		United States	3–0	Guatemala		9
4	1998	United States		Mexico	1–0	United States		Brazil	1–0	Jamaica		10
5	2000	United States		Canada	2–0	Colombia		Peru and   Trinidad and Tobago				12
6	2002	United States		United States	2–0	Costa Rica		Canada	2–1	South Korea		12
7	2003	Mexico   United States		Mexico	1–0 (s.d.)	Brazil		United States	3–2	Costa Rica		12
8	2005	United States		United States	0–0 (a.e.t.) (3–1 p)	Panama		Colombia and   Honduras				12
9	2007	United States		United States	2–1	Mexico		Canada and   Guadeloupe				12
10	2009	United States		Mexico	5–0	United States		Costa Rica and   Honduras				12
11	2011	United States		Mexico	4–2	United States		Honduras and   Panama				12
12	2013	United States		United States	1–0	Panama		Honduras and   Mexico				12
13	2015	Canada   United States		Mexico	3–1	Jamaica		Panama	1–1 (a.e.t.) (3–2 p)	United States		12
14	2017	United States		United States	2–1	Jamaica		Costa Rica and   Mexico				12
15	2019	Costa Rica   Jamaica   United States		Mexico	1–0	United States		Haiti and   Jamaica				16
16	2021	United States		United States	1–0 (a.e.t.)	Mexico		Canada and   Qatar				16
17	2023	Canada   United States		Mexico	1–0	Panama		Jamaica and   United States				16

Notes