Andres Guardado scored twice and Rafael Márquez and Pablo Barrera each added a goal as Mexico cruised into the quarterfinals of the Gold Cup with a 4-1 victory over Costa Rica on Sunday night in Chicago.

Mexico won Group A handily, sweeping its games against El Salvador, Cuba and Costa Rica. The defending champion Mexicans now face the third-place team from Group B or Group C in Saturday’s quarterfinals in East Rutherford, N.J.

Costa Rica finished second, ahead of El Salvador on goal differential. The Ticos will face Group B’s second-place team in the other quarterfinal Saturday.

Mexico is down to 17 players after goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa and defender Francisco Rodriguez, starters on last year’s World Cup team, and three others were removed from the team Thursday after testing positive for clenbuterol.

The Mexican federation is blaming contaminated meat for the positive tests and has asked to replace the players. Mexico overwhelmed Costa Rica with its fast-paced, energetic style, much to the delight of the sellout crowd of 62,000 at Soldier Field — almost all of whom were rooting for Mexico.

EL SALVADOR BATTERS CUBA

Rodolfo Zelaya scored a goal in each half, and El Salvador momentarily kept its hopes of reaching the Gold Cup quarterfinals alive with a 6-1 rout of Cuba in Chicago.

Osael Romero, Lester Blanco, Arturo Álvarez and Eliseo Quintanilla also scored for El Salvador, but it did not advance because Costa Rica finished second in the group, ahead of El Salvador on goal differential.

CUBAN PLAYER DEFECTS

A Cuban player has defected during the Gold Cup, leaving the team hotel in Charlotte, N.C.

In an interview aired Sunday on Univision, the American Spanish-language TV network, Yosniel Mesa, 30, said he had decided before the tournament to defect because he wanted to play professionally.

After Cuba lost to Mexico, 5-0, in Charlotte on Thursday, Mesa said, he climbed down a fire escape ladder at the hotel and ran to a car where family members were waiting.

COMPLACENCY CITED

United States midfielder Landon Donovan said his team’s complacency was to blame for its stunning 2-1 defeat to Panama in the Gold Cup on Saturday.

The United States allowed two goals in the opening 36 minutes and was unable to avoid its first defeat to Panama despite battling hard in the second half.

“For some reason, we were a little lackadaisical, a little complacent early,” Donovan told reporters after the game. “We can’t start that way, that’s the overwhelming, obvious point.”

The United States had never lost at the group stage in the 12-team tournament for North and Central America and the Caribbean, which is usually a routine process of elimination for the smaller nations.