The 2025 CONCACAF Gold Cup presents the top North and Central American nations with their last opportunity for competitive football before next summer’s FIFA World Cup.
With the United States, Mexico and Canada all qualifying automatically for the 2026 World Cup directly as joint-hosts, the Gold Cup represents their final chance for matches with competitive stakes.
Thus, it’s an important moment for the three 2026 hosts to test themselves against the best in their own confederation.
Those three nations are the only ones to have won the biennial Gold Cup across its existence, since being incepted in 1991 as the confederation’s championship tournament.
The Sporting News brings you an overview of how the Gold Cup will determine its knockout-stage participants once the group stage has been conducted.
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CONCACAF Gold Cup tiebreak rules: How group standings are determined
Sixteen nations contest the 2025 Gold Cup group stage, with 15 qualifiers from CONCACAF and one guest participant.
Broken into four groups of four teams each, the countries are hoping to position themselves through the three group matches to qualify for the eight-team knockout stage.
The top two teams from each group go through, with those group standings determined by points accrued over those first three matchdays (three for a win, one for a tie, none for a defeat). Should teams be level on points in the same group, a tiebreaker must be used.
The first tiebreaker in the group stage is goal difference, which is the most common method around the globe in both knockout and league competition.
After that, goals scored are used, followed by head-to-head record between the teams concerned.
Below is the full list of tiebreakers for when teams are level on points:
- Goal difference in all group matches
- Goals scored in all group matches
- Head-to-head results (points obtained between teams in question)
- Head-to-head goal difference between teams in question
- Head-to-head goals scored between teams in question
- Fair play points in all group matches (lowest total wins tiebreaker)
- Yellow card: 1 point
- Second yellow card: 3 points
- Straight red card: 4 points
- Drawing of lots
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How do the CONCACAF Gold Cup knockout stages work?
Teams that finish top two in their group advance to the knockout stage, with eight of the 16 total teams moving on to contest the quarterfinals.
Unlike the CONCACAF Nations League, the Gold Cup bracket is predetermined, broken down by group and finish to avoid potential rematches until the final.
In the quarterfinals, the four group winners match up against the group runners-up, with Group A and Group D teams meeting on opposite sides of the bracket, while Group B and Group C qualifiers also matching up on opposite ends.
