U.S. fans celebrate Diego Luna’s opener in St. Louis (Photo by Scott Rovak/Images)

The United States Men’s National Team is heading to the Gold Cup Finals with a 2-1 victory over Guatemala at Energizer Park, thanks to a great individual performance by Diego Luna, who currently plays for Real Salt Lake. Luna scored the first goal of the match to give his team a 2-0 lead. Despite being FIFA’s 106th-ranked team, Guatemala, which was coming off the tournament’s biggest upset against Canada, had twice as many shots and kept the pressure on a team that had many questions going into the Gold Cup tournament, that were in a 5-match losing streak.

Luna scored the first goal in the 4th minute off a rebound to give Team USA a 1-0 lead. His second goal came in the 15th minute thanks to Sebastian Berhalter, Malik Tillman, and Patrick Agyemang, who passed the ball to Luna fired a shot inside the near post to give the U.S. a 2-0 lead. Guatemala thought they drew within one when Rubio Rubin had a goal called back for offside. While a sellout crowd of 22,423 at Energizer Park was mostly rapid American fans, there was a pro-Guatemala crowd that kept their team alive throughout much of the match. Then, in the 80th minute of the match, Olger Escobar scored to keep this team alive at 2-1 and lifted the Guatemalan crowd into frenzy. 

From then on, the U.S. were in survival mode during the last 10 minutes of the match. When the referee blew the whistle, Team USA got the win, but it was far more intense than it could have been. With the victory, Team USA will play against their rival Mexico for the Gold Cup match, which the two nations have dominated the tournament. The United States and Mexico have combined to win 17 out of 18 possible Gold Cups. On Sunday, they’ll renew the rivalry in Houston.