By Dylan Butler

PHILADELPHIA - Gary Stempel won't have a problem motivating his team ahead of Saturday's CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal against the United States at Lincoln Financial Field.

The Panama coach has a laundry list of reasons why his team will be up to play the United States.

"It's the last two occasions we played in the Gold Cup, in the final and quarterfinal, we were eliminated by the U.S. Panama has never beaten the U.S., so for us it can at least mark a point in our football history," Stempel said. "The U.S. has a tremendous record at home, so there's a lot of motivating factors, but obviously the most important is you want to proceed to the next round."

It seems no matter what the two teams do during the group stage, Panama and the United States seem to find each other in the knockout stage.

In 2005, they met in the final at Giants Stadium, with the U.S. claiming the title on penalties. Two years ago in the quarterfinals, the Americans were again victorious, edging Panama 2-1.

U.S. coach Bob Bradley expects another closely contested match on Saturday night.

"We have a great amount of respect for Panama," he said. "Many of their players are the same, in particularly their strikers - (Jose) Garces and (Blas) Perez - are very dangerous."

While Brian Ching is the only carryover to have played for the U.S. in the 2007 quarterfinal at Gillette Stadium in Boston, 11 players from that Panama squad have returned this year.

"Coming here is good motivation, not only because we will be playing against the United States, and the United States is doing very well right now," Panama midfielder Alberto Blanco said through a translator. "This year we have a good, solid team ready to play the United States and change the score."

While the United States won Group B, defeating Grenada and Honduras before rallying to draw Haiti 2-2, Panama recovered from an opening loss to Guadeloupe in Group C to hold Mexico to a contentious 1-1 draw before beating Nicaragua 4-0.

Stempel said the experience of facing Mexico on July 9 will be beneficial when his team steps onto the field against the region's other perennial powerhouse on Saturday.

"Within a week we have to play the two big teams," Stempel said. "Having played Mexico, it gave us that kind of motivation to get out of the game well, and now we have to play the U.S., which is a motivating factor. I don't have to motivate my players for this game."

In addition to being the heavy favorite, the United States is the two-time defending Gold Cup champion. The expectations are squarely on their shoulders.

"Our preparation is always to focus on our next opponent, make sure we control the most important things - how we prepare, how the players mentally get ready for the game," Bradley said. "It's exciting to be defending champs and with it comes some pressure, but at the same time we have a good way of going about our work and now our full level of concentration is just on the match."