U.S. road to Cup may get cluttered
Even over the last decade, when the United States became the dominant team in its World Cup qualifying zone, it has remained a given that road games in Costa Rica are no-win propositions.
Under those circumstances, it also is a given that allowing the home team to score in the first two minutes was guaranteed to keep the U.S. team from ending its historic winless streak in the Central American country.
For all that, rarely in recent memory has the U.S. given a performance as underwhelming as it did in Wednesday’s 3-1 loss at Costa Rica, when it surrendered a goal after 83 seconds and appeared to have simply surrendered after that.
“We got our butts kicked,” said captain Carlos Bocanegra. “If that doesn’t wake you up, I don’t know what will.”
Bocanegra figured it is good the team won’t have much time to sleep on the nightmarishly bad effort before what his coach, Bob Bradley, calls “clearly a huge game for us.”
That would be today’s qualifying match with Honduras at Soldier Field, where most of the expected 50,000-plus fans likely will cheer the visitors.
A loss to Honduras would complicate what seemed to be an easy trip to the 2010 World Cup for the United States as it reaches the halfway point of the 10-match final qualifying round.
After upsetting Mexico, 3-1, in its last match, Honduras is in the mix with Mexico, Costa Rica and the U.S. for one of three guaranteed World Cup spots from the CONCACAF region.
The fourth-place finisher winds up in a playoff with the fifth-place team in the South America standings.
The United States stands second to Costa Rica in CONCACAF but has played one more match than Mexico and Honduras and has road trips remaining to both. Costa Rica leads the CONCACAF region with nine points. The U.S. has seven, Honduras four and Mexico three.
But the U.S. has not lost in 15 World Cup home qualifiers (14-0-1) dating to a defeat by Honduras in 2001.
“If we don’t get a win [today], we are lumped in a group,” Bocanegra said. “That is going to make it a lot more difficult for us.”
Mexico update
Mexico is at El Salvador today in World Cup qualifying and then hosts Trinidad and Tobago on Wednesday.
Mexico striker Cuauhtemoc Blanco is refusing to contemplate the possibility that his team could miss out on the World Cup for the first time since 1990.
“We know the team has not played well, but now we have an important challenge to beat El Salvador,” Blanco said.
Times wire services contributed to this report.
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