KINGSTON – The Unit­ed States edged Ja­maica 1-0 in the first leg of their League A quar­ter­fi­nal matchup in the 2024/25 Con­ca­caf Na­tions League on Thurs­day at Kingston’s Na­tion­al Sta­di­um in Ja­maica.

Ri­car­do Pepi put the reign­ing Na­tions League cham­pi­ons ahead five min­utes in­to the con­test, slot­ting home a pre­cise fin­ish off the left post af­ter a per­fect­ly weight­ed through ball from Chris­t­ian Pulisic.

Ja­maica had a gold­en op­por­tu­ni­ty to lev­el the score in the 12th minute when Shamar Nichol­son drew a foul in the box from U.S. goal­keep­er Matt Turn­er, earn­ing the hosts a penal­ty.

How­ev­er, Turn­er re­deemed him­self with a cru­cial save, deny­ing De­marai Gray’s spot-kick at­tempt in the 14th minute.

The Reg­gae Boyz pressed hard for an equal­iz­er in the sec­ond half, with no­table chances from Ma­son Hol­gate in the 66th minute and Damion Lowe just a minute lat­er, but they failed to cap­i­tal­ize.

Their hopes dimmed fur­ther in the 86th minute when Hol­gate was sent off af­ter re­ceiv­ing a sec­ond yel­low card, rul­ing him out of the sec­ond leg.

With the vic­to­ry, the US takes a slim 1-0 lead in­to Mon­day’s de­ci­sive sec­ond leg in St. Louis, Mis­souri.

Pana­ma earned a hard-fought 1-0 vic­to­ry over Cos­ta Ri­ca at Es­ta­dio Na­cional in San José in the oth­er quar­ter­fi­nal first-leg matchup.

Al­ber­to Fa­jar­do scored the game’s on­ly goal in the 66th minute, con­fi­dent­ly con­vert­ing a penal­ty kick to give the vis­i­tors the edge head­ing in­to the re­turn leg.

CMC