Mexico’s U-23 team begins their quest to repeat what the last group of U-23 players did four years ago when they kick off their CONCACAF U-23 Olympic Qualifying by facing Central American powers Costa Rica at the Stubhub Center in Carson City, California on Friday.

In a two week span the eight team tournament will decide which two teams will represent the CONCACAF region in next summer’s Olympic Games, while the third place team will play CONMEBOL runner-up Colombia in a one game playoff match to take place between March 21-29 for the place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Mexico are the defending CONCACAF U-23 champions after defeating Honduras in the final four years ago in Kansas City. Mexico ultimately reached the podium at the Olympic Games when it won it all against Brazil three years ago at the 2012 London Games. Before this group of Aztec Warriors can think about defending Mexico’s gold, it first much reach the Brazil Games and navigate Group B that not only consists of Costa Rica, but also Honduras and Haiti, and go from there.

Costa Rica enters the tournament after finishing second in Group A behind Panama in the Central American Qualifying tournament. By finishing second Costa Rica faced off against Group B runner-up Guatemala in a two legged play-off. After finishing the away game tied zero-zero, Costa Rica was able to take a one-zero win in the second leg and advance to this stage of the process.

Mexican coach Raul Gutierrez hasn’t announced his starting XI yet, but in the last several matches he has tended to rely on a 4-4-2 formation with the midfield depending on the players he has at his disposal. 

Look for a very aggressive and possession based game plan coming from Mexico. El Tri will likely try and use their outside defenders to augment the attack, and commit seven to eight players in the attacking third to put heavy pressure on Costa Rica. 

There’s a high chance of Marco Bueno and Erick Torres starting up top for Mexico, which would give them a balance between having a bigger forward in Bueno and a smaller, quicker, slashing forward in Torres. This will allow Mexico to have different options in how they want to attack. Considering that they might be facing 10 or 11 defenders behind the ball, being able to use quick, wide players like Daniel Alvarez, Arturo Gonzalez, and Hirving Lopez to attack from the wings and send crosses to the bigger Bueno will be vital for Mexico to stretch the Costa Rican defense across the field. THat will inevitably allow the attack to open up gaps in the middle and channels will become bigger for forwards to run through, in addition to opening up passing lanes for midfielders like Erick Gutierrez to split the defense with a through ball.

If Mexico hopes to defend their gold, they must first get through qualifying, which will all get started on Friday night against Los Ticos at 8 p.m. Pacific time.