Arena Stays Guarded in Enemy Territory
Carlos “Tyson” Pavon went shopping Tuesday morning. There he was, wearing the blue and white colors of the Honduran national team, strolling unmolested through a mall and pausing every now and then to oblige a fan or shopkeeper with a quick hello or an autograph.
He appeared relaxed, unworried, ready.
At the nearby Inter-Continental Hotel, uniformed guards cradling automatic weapons patrolled the grounds. In the lobby, hotel security was also evident.
This is where the U.S. national soccer team is staying--holed up would not be too strong a choice of words--and a barrier of guns and silence has been erected around the players and coaches.
In vain, Honduran newspaper and television reporters sought to interview Coach Bruce Arena or any U.S. team members. Their efforts were rebuffed.
The Hondurans can’t understand it. Why, they wonder, is the U.S. being so secretive, so uncooperative, so distant?
The answer is obvious. Tonight, in the sold-out bedlam of Estadio Olimpico, the U.S. plays a team that is every bit its match. Honduras is capable of putting a sizable dent in the Americans’ hopes of qualifying for the 2002 World Cup.
Pavon, its standout striker, is not the only danger.
“Honduras is a very good team, a team that gets forward real quick,” Arena said. “They’re not a team that sits back defensively. They’ll press you in your own end as much as possible and rely on the quick attacking work of [Milton] Nunez, [Julio Cesar] de Leon and [Amado] Guevara.
“They have possibly the best defender in our confederation in [Hugo] Caballero. He’s outstanding. They can attack you in a bunch of different spots. They’re a very aggressive team. At home, they come at you from all different angles. They’re going to be a very difficult team to play against. Their speed and their quickness is something that we are certainly going to be concerned about.”
Given the difficulty of the task, Arena is not about to let his players be distracted by reporters. He even limits his own contact with the U.S. media, with whom he has always had a prickly relationship.
So far, in the 24 hours that the American team has been in Honduras, there have been no untoward incidents.
Asked before leaving Miami whether he expected any, Arena was noncommittal.
“I really don’t know,” he said. “I imagine there’s going to be a fair amount of security, but things happen and we obviously anticipate that there could be problems. We’ll just have to wait and see. We’re going to have our own security people with us as well, so hopefully it will be minimal.”
If the Honduran team’s strength is causing Arena sleepless nights, and its more boisterous fans are also a concern, then so, too, is the potential for dubious officiating.
“I think there’s a tendency when you’re on the road that the calls are going to go against you,” Arena said. “The referee is under a lot of pressure in these situations, and experience tells us that we’re going to get a couple of bad calls against us. That’s all part of the game.”
While Arena is worrying about what might go wrong, his counterpart, Honduras Coach Ramon Maradiaga, is thinking about all that can go right.
Honduras has not qualified for the World Cup since 1982, when Maradiaga was still a player, but this time around the Central American nation has a realistic chance to be one of three teams from soccer’s North and Central American and Caribbean region (CONCACAF) to qualify.
Last year, Maradiaga coached Honduras to the CONCACAF Under-23 championship, qualifying for the Sydney Olympic Games.
“It will be a difficult game,” he said of tonight’s match, which will be televised live on pay-per-view at 5:30 p.m. (PST). “It’s very important that we win, because that will put us in first place [in the six-nation qualifying group].”
While Arena is doing his best to limit information that might help Honduras, Maradiaga has been quietly going about his job. He has carefully studied a videotape of the 2-0 U.S. victory over Mexico Feb. 28. He was at the Rose Bowl March 3, when the U.S. lost, 2-1, to Brazil and knows the American squad’s depth.
He is unlikely to be surprised by either the Americans’ lineup or tactics.
Nor will Arena be surprised by the Hondurans.
“It’s a huge match for them,” he said. “They need to get three points in this game and they’re going to come at us with everything they have.”
With that in mind, the U.S. players set off for the Estadio Olimpico on Tuesday evening for one last training session.
Leaving the hotel, they passed through a line of rifle-toting guards to get to their bus, which then was escorted through the city by two police motorcycles, each with red lights flashing, and by two pickup trucks loaded with armed troops.
Paranoia runs deep and the opening whistle has yet to sound.
(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)
World Cup Qualifying
The United States leads series against Honduras, 2-1-3:
* Tonight’s game: United States vs. Honduras, 5:30 PST.
* Where: San Pedro Sula,
Honduras.
* TV: Pay-per-view.
* Last meeting: Dec. 11, 1994, Fullerton, United States 1, Honduras 1.
