Uriel Antuna scored a hat trick as Mexico got their Gold Cup campaign off to a dominant start with a 7-0 rout of Cuba in their opener at the Rose Bowl on Saturday.

The 21-year-old was a last-minute replacement for injured defender Jorge Sanchez in the Mexico squad for the tournament and the addition paid big dividends.

The LA Galaxy midfielder, on loan from Manchester City, gave Mexico the perfect start in their quest for a seventh Gold Cup title when he scored in the second minute of the match, moments after Raul Jimenez had hit the post from close-range.

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Antuna, who just made his international debut 10 days ago off the bench against Venezuela, gave his team a 4-0 advantage in the 44th minute, then capped his night with a final goal in the 80th minute.

Wolverhampton Wanders star Jimenez scored twice, while Diego Reyes and Ernesto Vega also tallied for El Tri.

Cheered on by a supportive crowd, Mexico showed no sign of letting down their fans down despite missing key figures like Hector Herrera, Javier "Chicharito" Hernandez, Carlos Vela and Hirving Lozano from their squad.

It was a first competitive win for new manager Gerardo "Tata" Martino, who was hired back in January and had overseen three friendly wins against South American opposition.

"I was surprised I was going to get the start," Antuna told Univision after the match. "But I just took advantage of the situation, [Martino] showed great confidence in me."

Cuba, making their first Gold Cup appearance since 2015, have now lost to Mexico four times in as many meetings in the biennial championship of the North, Central American and Caribbean region.

"We had a great match, we took the initiative from the beginning," Jimenez told Univision after the match. "The first goal helped us, it opened up with the match."

Canada earlier thrashed Martinique 4-0 at the same stadium in Saturday's other Group A match.

Information from Reuters was used in this report.

PARIS -- For the players involved, a World Cup can be a repetitive cycle of meetings, practices, meals and waiting that is interrupted only occasionally by 90 minutes of soccer. So it was hardly a surprise to find a contingent of American players wasting time at one of the countless outdoor cafes in Reims, France, a few days before the U.S. played its opening game.

And it was hardly a surprise to see Lindsey Horan take charge when someone needed to act as spokesperson in the interactions with the waitstaff. Still a few days away from her World Cup debut, she wasn't the most senior player in the group. But after living and working in the country for more than three years as a member of Paris Saint-Germain, she is the team's Francophile. When it comes to navigation or language, teammates are happy to follow her lead.

"She's definitely guiding us around," Samantha Mewis said after the team moved on to Paris. "She gives us little French tips when we have questions. My parents and I followed behind her and her parents last night, like 10 feet away, to dinner because I had no idea where to go. So we were just like little ducklings."

What remains to be seen is whether a generation of players will follow her lead to future World Cups. Against the backdrop of this tournament in Europe -- one in which the oft-discussed recent rapid growth of national teams such as those from England, the Netherlands, Spain and even host France will be tested -- Horan is at least partly the product of a European development model.

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After a successful debut with a goal in the rout of Thailand, her return to Paris for Sunday's game against Chile brings her full circle. She once came to this city as a teenager looking for a soccer experience she couldn't get at home. Now she returns hoping to prove the U.S. remains a team unlike any in the world.

"I went through a lot," Horan said last week. "But it's prepared me for me being here today."

The World Cup now underway in France had yet to be awarded to the country when Horan made headlines by passing up a scholarship at the University of North Carolina to sign a professional contract with PSG in 2012. While the money committed to the men's team drew more attention after Qatari interests purchased Paris Saint-Germain in 2011, the takeover also marked a new era for the women's team, which saw funds committed to foreign players such as Horan and Sweden's Kosovare Asllani. It was big-time soccer.

While common enough in a sport such as tennis, Horan's move to bypass college in favor of the professional ranks was essentially unprecedented in major women's team sports in the United States. It created a path where none previously existed, even if trailblazing wasn't her intention.

"At the time, that definitely is not what I was thinking," Horan, 25, said this week. "It was more so just what was best for me, and what I needed to do to meet my goals and put myself in an uncomfortable position. And something that I've always wanted to do in my life was play professionally overseas and do whatever I could to get myself on the women's national team."

Among those well aware of Horan at the time was Jill Ellis, in her role as a college coach at UCLA until 2011 and then as U.S. Soccer development director when Horan signed with PSG.

"I was a little bit surprised," Ellis recalled, "but I've always been someone that believes that people have to determine their own path. And I never want to walk in someone's shoes. So I applauded her for that, the courage to make that decision, to pursue that goal."

As invested as Ellis is in the college model, not just from her time as a coach but also as a student who found far greater soccer opportunities in the U.S. than her native England, she is also a realist now in charge of a national team competing against nations with very different developmental models. Foreign players abound on NCAA rosters -- a Finnish player captained Florida State to the national title in 2018. World Cup rosters, too, are full of women who played college soccer in the United States. It's still a model that works for a lot of people in a lot of places.

Yet increasingly at the very top of the sport, it's a model that separates the U.S. from most of its main rivals. And arguably constrains it.

U.S. defender Crystal Dunn took the collegiate path Horan bypassed, playing at North Carolina, but she also saw the emerging alternative while playing for a year with Chelsea. From youth teams to the senior team, men or women, the club was interconnected. Teenagers trained next to, and sometimes alongside, pros perhaps a decade older.

"I think that really was important for them to be thrown in that environment and obviously see where they stand," Dunn said. "Just the way they set up their development is really spectacular because they put a lot of thought and resources into their youth because they feel like that's the key to the future. It's important that the young ones are feeling like pros."

That's the path Horan followed from the time she was 18.

Now one of Horan's close friends on the U.S. team, having played alongside her going back to the under-20 national team, Rose Lavelle on Thursday recalled being intimidated when Horan, the professional, came into the same youth team for the first time. Later, in regard to her own journey, Lavelle also talked about how much more seriously she had to take soccer, the mental and physical preparation, when she entered the National Women's Soccer League and debuted for the senior national team in 2017. As a college player, she admitted, she could get by with some shortcuts.

Horan didn't get to take those shortcuts. She was a pro among amateurs when she returned to youth camps. That would seem intimidating to those around her.

"I was so used to playing on my youth team [growing up in Colorado] and being one of the best players and being able to do whatever I wanted," Horan said. "It was a different situation with PSG. I had to learn how to come off the bench, as well, and not always have that starting role. It made me mentally tougher."

Horan sounded almost wistful this week talking about the pleasure of hearing French again, even as she knocked the rust off of her own language skills. She has talked in the past of cherishing memories as simple as taking her parents to see tourist destinations when they visited. Time gilds memories. But she doesn't hide the fact that soccer was only part of the challenge, maybe even the easier part.

"It's insanely different," Horan said recently. "At 18 in Paris, I'm young, I'm shy, I'm very nervous about the culture and language, and socially just kept myself inside and didn't get out there until more internationals came and Tobin [Heath] was there. And as I got more comfortable, things started getting easier for me and I actually got out of my apartment."

Ideally, of course, players who choose the same path as Horan won't have to follow it across any oceans. The NWSL wasn't in operation when Horan went overseas. The model for the select few in the future might look more like U.S. teammate Mallory Pugh, who elected not to play college soccer at UCLA and signed professionally with the Washington Spirit. Olivia Moultrie, who signed with the Portland Thorns at 13, might be next in line.

But whether it's in their own country or overseas, where the monetary possibilities and training facilities from teams such as recent Champions League finalists Barcelona and Lyon will always be tempting, players pondering the decision would be wise to consider not just Horan playing in front of thousands in Paris this weekend but also Horan sitting alone and uncertain in an apartment at 18.

"They just have to know it inside," Horan said recently. "It took me a year to make the decision to go pro and skip college and give up that. You really have to know inside that you do not want to do [the college route], that professional soccer is what you want to do with your life.

"You're giving up a lot, and you need to know it's not going to be easy."

The midfielder now so important for U.S. title hopes, who switched effortlessly in the opening game between playing deep in midfield as a conductor to attacking the goal from a wider position, was made in Portland just as much as Paris. The reigning NWSL MVP cites that club as the place where she found her confidence as a world-class player.

So maybe she is a blueprint. Or maybe she is unique. Either way, she followed a different path.

"We kind of always knew she'd be here," Mewis said of the World Cup. "Everyone in the youth camps was always like, 'We just knew that this was where Lindsey was going to end up.'"

Back on a soccer field in Paris, as it turns out.

The World Cup is the culmination of a process. Teams have fought to be there. They are battle hardened and ready, clear about what they are trying to do.

The Copa America is the opposite. It is the start of a new process, kicking off a new cycle of competitive games. That is even more true about Brazil 2019. Qualification for the 2022 World Cup starts later than usual -- next March rather than this October. That has taken away some of the urgency of the current tournament -- seen most clearly in the case of Argentina, who have come with an inexperienced caretaker coach.

Lionel Scaloni took over after Russia 2018 with a clear idea in mind. He spoke of his belief in direct football, in rapid transitions rather than elaborate midfield passing moves. And in last year's friendlies he set up his side in accordance with this way of thinking. He fielded two wingers, and the midfielders were expected to deliver the ball quickly into wide spaces.

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It was probably in Scaloni's favour that Lionel Messi was taking a break from the international game at the time. This is not a method of play made for Messi. Now he has returned -- and as Saturday's 2-0 defeat to Colombia made very clear -- Scaloni is caught between ideas.

The inclusion of Messi already robs Scaloni of one of his wingers, making it very hard to stretch the opposing defence and open up space. The other winger, Angel Di Maria, was unable to make any impact on the match because the ball never came his way. Occasionally Argentina tried to go long, with hopeful punts upfield predictably gobbled up by the giant Colombian defenders.

With the inclusion of Messi, Scaloni's Argentina were no longer equipped to go the direct route. But they were also unable to pass their way through the midfield, and thus bring Messi and Sergio Aguero into play close to the Colombian goal. Canny Colombia coach Carlos Queiroz packed the midfield, using Juan Guillermo Cuadrado in an interesting double function; he would play his normal wide role when James Rodriguez drifted across. But otherwise Cuadrado tucked infield, making the extra man through the centre, outnumbering Argentina and freeing the outstanding Wilmar Barrios to keep a watching brief on Messi.

At halftime, his team having made no impression on the game, Scaloni was forced to abandon his favoured idea. Off came Di Maria. Argentina were now left with no wingers. Rodrigo De Paul gave them the extra man in midfield.

Argentina began to work themselves higher up the pitch, putting some passing movements together in the Colombian half. It was better, but there was little penetration. Entirely right-footed out on the left, De Paul could only effectively go inside, and so the play was all in front of the Colombian defence. Argentina had become the exact opposite of Scaloni's original intentions.

Even so, they nearly took the lead. It took a moment of magic to unlock the defence: Aguero's backheel put Messi through, who sliced the back line in half but, before Messi could pull the trigger, Barrios was back to nip the ball away from him. And with Argentina higher up the field, it then became easier for Colombia to catch their vulnerable defence in open space.

Both times Argentina were caught out by switches to their right. The first time came from a magnificent cross-field ball from James. It was all too comfortable for Roger Martinez to collect, cut inside right-back Renzo Saravia and fire across into the far corner.

The second came after the belated introduction of centre forward Duvan Zapata, who always looked like being too much of a handful for the Argentina centre-backs. He set up the move, bodies bouncing off him as he went cross-field, found Martinez, who slipped to the overlapping Jefferson Lerma. Saravia was played out of the game, and then Lerma's cross cut out centre-backs German Pezzella and Nicolas Otamendi for Zapata to fire emphatically home.

The problem for La Albiceleste is that these players are not suddenly going to get better. Argentina's defensive woes are going to persist. What may change, though, is the overall idea of play.

Against Colombia, they fell ludicrously between two stools: Unable to play long, and then without the width to penetrate when they went short.

But the Copa is just beginning. Eight of the 12 teams go through to the quarterfinals. And one of the most fascinating aspects of tournaments is that they can serve as time sped up. Teams can suddenly fall apart, or they can suddenly come together.

If Messi is to end his national team title drought this year, then the second option will have to apply to Argentina.

Australia are finding a way. As the group stage of the World Cup nears its halfway mark the defending champions are at the top of the table. They face Bangladesh next and if they win it will take them to 10 points, which could already be enough for a semi-final spot before the tougher challenges of New Zealand and England.

The match against Sri Lanka, won by 87 runs after they quelled an early onslaught by the openers, ended a run of four matches in ten intense days for Australia as they dodged the rain which dogged the last week of the tournament. None of the wins have been perfect, even the ultimately comfortable margin of the latest success coming with further questions about the middle order. Still, they are digging deep into their resources having been forced to rejig the side in the absence of Marcus Stoinis.

The century for Aaron Finch and four-wicket haul for Mitchell Starc took the headlines on Saturday, but the all-round performance of Glenn Maxwell was a crucial part of ensuring the holes that remain in the Australia side did not prove pivotal. His 46 off 25 balls meant that while the final total was probably 20 runs light of where it could have been, momentum was not totally lost at the death.

WATCH on Hotstar (India only) - Maxwell's rapid 46

Then, perhaps more importantly given the questions of balance, he was able to bowl his ten overs for 46 runs despite Sri Lanka having a terrific platform to build on. That might say more about the issues in Sri Lanka's batting, but the use of Maxwell's bowling - which he had the opportunity to use extensively during his time with Lancashire earlier in the season - has been one of the significant developments in Australia's one-day side over the last few months.

Until March he had not bowled his full 10 overs in an ODI since 2015 - the year he was played as Australia's lone spinner for the majority of their successful World Cup campaign - with Steven Smith preferring Travis Head's offspin in the last couple of years of his captaincy. Now he has sent down his quota four times in his last 14 matches, three times going for less than fifty. In this match, he bowled 15 dot balls to Dimuth Karunaratne who could only strike at 71 against him and of the batsmen to face more than one delivery from him, only Kusal Mendis could take him for a run-a-ball. There was no need for Finch or Smith to take their net bowling into the middle.

"I think Smithy obviously rated Heady's bowling a little bit more, and that's fine. That happens. That's an on-the-day decision. I think [Maxwell] has done really well when he's had the opportunity," Finch said. "He was a big part of us reining it in today. Two lefties, he had a nice breeze to bowl with, to across, which allowed him to drift the ball quite a bit which made it - made it, he could shut down one side of the ground a bit easier."

With a decision being made on Stoinis before the next match - and Mitchell Marsh waiting in the wings - Australia's XI for the Bangladesh game will be interesting given they will have a seam-bowling allrounder to again pick from if needed. The last two matches have seen them go with four quicks, leaving Adam Zampa and Nathan Lyon on the sidelines.

The attack continues to lean very heavily on Starc and Pat Cummins - currently the top two wicket-takers in the tournament - and the next few days is a chance for them to catch their breath with Australia's final four group matches spread over the last two weeks of qualifying. There may even be the chance for some rotation if things continue to go to plan ahead of the semi-finals, but Starc does not want to be part of that.

"We spoke about that before this fixture and wanted to give as much as we could to get the result then have a little bit more relaxed back end to the tournament where we can perhaps have a few more training days or if we need some days we can factor that in as well," he said. "Ultimately is not up to me but it's a World Cup and you have to pick your best XI depending on the conditions and opposition but I definitely won't be putting up my hand up to rest."

WATCH on Hotstar (India only) - Maxwell's rapid 46

Having been Player of the Tournament in 2015, Starc is again proving a World Cup trump card with a five-wicket and four-wicket haul already under his belt. "For me I just try to keep my white-ball game very simple," he said. "I don't have all these variations. I'm pretty clear on what I want to do whether it's new ball, old ball or through the middle.

"What I've added is able to play different roles against different teams or in different conditions. I might go for more runs but I'm there to make a breakthrough in short, sharp spells. That's something that has stayed consistent in my one-day cricket. Whether my game suits that, I don't know. Test cricket is still the pinnacle but the fact I've kept my game plan pretty simple in white-ball cricket has kept me in good stead through World Cups and when times haven't gone so well."

Top of the table with the leading wicket-taker and leading run-scorer is a handy position to be in. Have Australia convinced they can be champions again? Perhaps not, but while they keep winning that doesn't really matter.

Buckle up. It's time for India v Pakistan. Follow ESPNcricinfo's live updates and analysis here. (If the blog doesn't load for you, please refresh your page.)