LOS AN­GE­LES– Con­ca­caf an­nounced yes­ter­day that the Rose Bowl will host the open­ing dou­ble-head­er of the Gold Cup on Ju­ly 7, and will fea­ture reign­ing Gold Cup cham­pi­on, Mex­i­co.

"We look for­ward to an ex­cit­ing 2013 Gold Cup be­gin­ning on Ju­ly 7 here at the his­toric Rose Bowl," said Con­ca­caf pres­i­dent, Jef­frey Webb. "All com­mu­ni­ties will be unit­ed through re­gion­al ri­val­ries that gen­er­ate na­tion­al pride filled with emo­tion and pas­sion."

The Mex­i­can team, un­der the guid­ance of man­ag­er Jose Manuel de la Torre, looks to de­fend its 2011 Gold Cup ti­tle, which Mex­i­cio se­cured that sum­mer in front of a ca­pac­i­ty crowd of more than 93,000 fans at the Rose Bowl.

The icon­ic Rose Bowl has a long his­to­ry as an in­ter­na­tion­al foot­ball des­ti­na­tion, in­clud­ing the site of the 1984 Olympic fi­nal, the 1994 World Cup fi­nal, the 1999 FI­FA Women's World Cup fi­nal, the 2002 and 2011 CON­CA­CAF Gold Cup fi­nals, as well as be­ing the home to Ma­jor League Soc­cer's LA Galaxy from 1996-2003. It is the on­ly sta­di­um in the world to have host­ed both a men's and women's World Cup fi­nal, plus an Olympic gold medal match.

The venue is al­so home to Amer­i­can foot­ball's old­est an­nu­al col­lege New Year's Day game, and has served five times as the site of the NFL's Su­per Bowl.

Join­ing the Rose Bowl, the re­gion's pre­mier na­tion­al team tour­na­ment will again ex­pand its foot­print by vis­it­ing 12 oth­er his­toric and state of the art venues across the Unit­ed States. The venues are: Cow­boys Sta­di­um in Ar­ling­ton, TX, Geor­gia Dome in At­lanta, GA; M&T Bank Sta­di­um in Bal­ti­more, MD; Sol­dier Field in Chica­go, IL; Sports Au­thor­i­ty Field at Mile High in Den­ver, CO; Rentschler Field in East Hart­ford, CT; BB­VA Com­pass Sta­di­um in Hous­ton, TX; Sun Life Sta­di­um in Mi­a­mi Gar­dens, FL; Red Bull Are­na in Har­ri­son, NJ; JELD-WEN Field in Port­land, OR; Rio Tin­to Sta­di­um in Salt Lake City, UT; Cen­tu­ryLink Field in Seat­tle, WA.

With a mix of his­toric venues and brand new state of the art foot­ball fa­cil­i­ties that av­er­age 57,000 spec­ta­tors, this edi­tion of the Gold Cup promis­es to pro­vide fans both in sta­di­um and at home with un­for­get­table at­mos­pheres. In 2011, the tour­na­ment drew more than 600,000 fans through­out 13 match-days, in­clud­ing nine sell-outs.

The fol­low­ing 12 na­tion­al teams have qual­i­fied for this year's tour­na­ment in­clud­ing Be­lize, Cana­da, Cos­ta Ri­ca, Cu­ba, El Sal­vador, Haiti, Hon­duras, Mar­tinique, Mex­i­co, Pana­ma, T&T and the Unit­ed States.

Tak­ing place every two years, the Gold Cup has es­tab­lished it­self as the re­gion's most pop­u­lar na­tion­al team tour­na­ment, rou­tine­ly draw­ing ca­pac­i­ty crowds and mil­lions of tele­vi­sion view­ers across the re­gion. It fea­tures the con­fed­er­a­tion's best play­ers from the top 12 na­tions.

The Gold Cup groups and sched­ules will be an­nounced mid-March. (CMC)

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