Mexico out of Olympic soccer

Mexico’s Golden Generation will not be going for the gold at the Beijing Olympics.

A favorite to secure one of the two berths being awarded during regional qualifying, El Tri did not even make it past the group stage.

After Canada trounced Guatemala, 5-0, Mexico’s Olympic aspirations came to a shocking end Sunday at the Home Depot Center.

The Tricolores played their best game of the tournament, but a 5-1 win against a nine-man Haiti team was not enough.

Mexico and Canada finished tied with four points, but Canada had a goal differential of plus-four to Mexico’s plus-three.

“Undoubtedly, this is a failure,” Mexico Coach Hugo Sanchez said. “Not being in the Olympic Games, for Mexico, is hard to take.

“We were looking to make history because we’ve never won a medal [in soccer].”

The questions for Sanchez were hard and fierce. Sanchez, asked about his job status, simply kept saying that his contract goes through the 2010 World Cup and that he plans to coach the national team in South Africa.

Mexico’s soccer federations may have other plans as they have set up a meeting for the end of this month to discuss, among other things, Sanchez’s job as coach.

Guatemala will play Honduras and the U.S. will play Canada in Nashville on Thursday at 4 and 7 p.m., respectively. The winners punch their tickets to Beijing.

Mexico fans, which accounted for the majority of the announced 12,824, were supportive for much of the game, but grew louder when Luis Angel Landin scored Mexico’s fifth goal in the 90th minute.

But crowd support wavered at times during and after the game, as chants for Mexico’s former coach Ricardo LaVolpe could be heard.

Mexico had opportunities for more goals -- it had 14 shots -- but failed to finish.

Santiago Fernandez, who scored one goal, missed two other opportunities late in the game, and Cesar Villaluz, one of the more promising youngsters on the team, missed a penalty kick in the 76th minute.

Guatemala Coach Rodrigo Kenton attributed his team’s lopsided loss to his decision to rest six of his starters in anticipation of Thursday’s semifinals.

Canada had one shot on goal in the first half and scored four goals in the second.

Tosaint Ricketts and Will Johnson each had two goals and Kyle Hall one for Canada.

Ricketts’ first goal came in the closing seconds of the first half.

“I think it just changed the tempo of the game,” Canada Coach Nick Dasovic said.

“The goal came at a very important time.”

Canada was last in soccer competition in the Olympics in 1984.

Guatemala is looking for its first Olympics trip since 1988.

--

jaime.cardenas@latimes.com