Jamaica Puts End to an Era in 2-0 Win
When it was all over, when the final whistle had sounded in the final game of Mauricio Cienfuegos’ international career, it was the opposing coach who was the first to console, congratulate and thank him.
Trudging off the Los Angeles Coliseum field alone shortly before 10 Monday night, his blue El Salvador jersey soaked by the effort he had put in during a 2-0 loss to World Cup-bound Jamaica, Cienfuegos had every right to feel downcast.
For him, and for El Salvador, it marked the end of an era.
Realizing that, Rene Simoes, Jamaica’s coach, purposely made his way across the field and spent a few moments with the player who for almost a decade has been the heart and soul of the Central American team.
Now, it is over. For Cienfuegos, who announced last week that the CONCACAF Gold Cup would be the final tournament he would play in for his country, only the Galaxy remains.
He will remain a midfielder for Los Angeles in Major League Soccer but will never again put on the national team jersey.
The Gold Cup, meanwhile, has the four semifinalists it perhaps wanted all along--Brazil, Jamaica, Mexico and the United States, each of them heading for the World Cup in France this summer.
Tuesday night at 8, the United States played world champion Brazil, the same team that knocked it out of the semifinals of the 1996 Gold Cup.
On Thursday, Cienfuegos’ 30th birthday, Mexico will play Jamaica at 7 p.m.
Monday night’s match, played on a chilly evening in front of a sparse crowd of 5,791--the game was flooded out Friday and rescheduled for Monday--was no great advertisement for soccer.
Indeed, so controversial was the officiating by referee Mohamed Nazri Abdullah of Malaysia that it almost turned into a brawl midway through the second half after a series of ugly fouls went unpunished by Abdullah.
He eventually ejected two players in the closing minutes--Jamaican defender Christopher Dawes and Salvadoran winger Ronald Cerritos--but by then the damage to his reputation already had been done.
Nelson Rojas-Giron chopped Jamaica’s Deon Burton down from behind and Burton retaliated by stomping on Rojas-Giron’s ankle.
Both fouls went unpunished.
Jamaica needed to either win or tie to reach the semifinals. It got the only goal it needed in the 41st minute when Paul Hall sent a crossing pass in from the right wing and Marcus Gayle beat goalkeeper Santos Noel Rivera to the ball.
Gayle powered a header into the net before the goalkeeper could react. Rivera claimed he had been elbowed, but replays showed it was a clean goal.
Jamaica doubled its advantage in the 52nd minute on a superb free kick by Fitzroy Simpson that was struck with such accuracy and power that the El Salvador defensive wall and the goalkeeper had no chance of stopping it.
The Caribbean team, playing an attractive brand of soccer that is the Simoes hallmark, was in charge throughout. It made full use of the field, retained position and possession well and deserved the result.
If there is a weakness in Jamaica’s game, it is a tendency to be a little casual on defense, preferring to play the ball out of trouble rather than simply get rid of it.
That tactic, while appealing, is likely to be taken advantage of by two of Jamaica’s World Cup opponents, Argentina and Croatia, but it might work against the third, Japan. The test will come Thursday night when Ramon Ramirez, Luis Hernandez and the rest of Mexico’s forwards have to be dealt with.
For the United States, meanwhile, the first true examination of 1998 arrives tonight.
The American team is unbeaten in eight games, its most recent defeat being a 1-0 loss to Ecuador in a meaningless friendly in Baltimore on Aug. 7. There will be nothing meaningless about tonight’s match against Brazil, however.
