Mexico Routs Guyana, 9-0, in Olympic Soccer Trials

Mexico’s national soccer team took its first step toward qualifying for the 1988 Olympic Games on the footwork of Eduardo De La Torre and Benjamin Galindo.

With De La Torre and Galindo scoring two goals each, Mexico overwhelmed Guyana, 9-0, Wednesday night before an overflow crowd of 12,000 at Santa Ana Stadium.

The Mexican team will play Guatemala in February to decide the Olympic representative from the Caribbean-North-Central region. First, Mexico must play Guyana in Mexico City. A loss would require Mexico to beat Guatamala twice to reach the Olympics.

However, losing to Guyana seems a remote possibility if Mexico performs as it did Wednesday night.

Playing before a partisan crowd, De La Torre and Galindo took advantage of an over-aggressive and often confused Guyanan defense.

De La Torre left a drop pass for Luis Flores, whose 20-yard kick beat goalie Fitzgerald Austin to the left for a 1-0 lead 28:56 into the first half. De La Torre then scored off a corner kick by Flores for a 2-0 lead 33:18 into the half.

After Juan Hernandez kicked a goal from 30-yards out, about five minutes later, Galindo scored on a pass from De La Torre for a 4-0 halftime lead.

The Guyanan defense made the mistake of overplaying to the outside, which led to two quick Mexican goals early in the second half.

After taking a centering pass from Fernando Quirarte, De La Torre flipped a kick past Austin for a 5-0 lead. Galindo then scored on a free kick from 30-yards out to make it 6-0.

Guyana made few attacks and rarely crossed the midfield stripe. What offense it did manage to mount was squelched by the Mexican defense and the officials.

Guyana was twice cited for offsides on breakaways in the first half, and had a goal nullified by another offsides call in the second half.