Mexico picked up an opening night win against the Dominican Republic to start their defence of the Concacaf Gold Cup.
Mexico vs Dominican Republic: Lineup
Javier Aguirre kept many guessing over who would start in the first match of the Concacaf Gold Cup, but the 1-0 win in their final friendly against Turkey gave a good insight.
The back four stayed unchanged from the win last week, with the front two of Raúl Jiménez and Santiago Giménez staying the same.
As for the midfield, Aguirre opted for Cruz Azul's Erik Lira to join Edson Álvarez in the centre despite starting Marcel Ruiz in the win over Turkey. There was also a surprise down the wings as the Mexico manager opted for Orbellín Pineda to start over recent Liga MX Clausura winner Alexis Vega, who has been in the form of his life.
Mexico 3-2 Dominican Republic: El Trí are underway
Hitting the group stages running, Mexico asserted their dominance early doors but couldn't find a breakthrough until moments before the halftime break when captain Edson Álvarez was left unmarked from an Orbellín Pineda corner to head El Tri into the lead.
Raúl Jiménez doubled their lead early in the second half when Santiago Giménez slotted the Fulham forward in on goal to place the ball between the legs of Xavier Valez.
The Dominican Republic found themselves right back in the game after an excellent solo run from Peter González, cutting in from the right to curl his shot beyond Luís Malagón, reducing the deficit back to one.
Mexico soon restored their two-goal advantage when César Montes added his name to the scoresheet. While he might not have known much about it, the route to goal was the same as the first, as Álvarez got his head onto another Pineda corner, but the midfielder's header took a heavy deflection off Montes to give Mexico a third goal.
All seemed done and dusted as Mexico took another two-goal lead, but the Dominican Republic didn't go down without a fight. With 23 minutes left on the clock, they were once again right back in the game when Edison Azcona cut onto his right foot to fire past Malagón, with the help of a deflection from Álvarez.
Despite their best efforts to claw themselves back into the game, Mexico managed to hold onto an important three points to kickstart their defence of the Gold Cup.
Next up is a meeting with Suriname on Wednesday night at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.
Will Mexico make it six points from six against Suriname? Let us know!