Mexico back on its proper course
Attack, attack and then attack some more.
Those were Mexico Coach Javier Aguirre’s exact and unequivocal instructions to his players ahead of Wednesday night’s key World Cup qualifying match against Trinidad and Tobago at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City.
The players listened, and the result was one of the liveliest and most entertaining games staged in that neck of the woods in quite some time.
Mexico emerged victorious, 2-1, to put itself back on course for a trip to South Africa next year. Trinidad and Tobago will have to wait until Brazil 2014.
Inspired by the ageless Cuauhtemoc Blanco, “El Tri” looked like its old self, a team willing to go for broke, to throw numbers forward and to produce some crowd-pleasing soccer while doing so. Gone was the ultra-cautious approach of dour Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson, Aguirre’s predecessor.
Blanco, Nery Castillo (until he went off injured) and Andres Guardado all dazzled with their moves. Alberto Medina and Giovani Dos Santos followed suit when they came into the game later.
To their immense credit, the Soca Warriors gave as good as they got. Not at all intimidated by the Azteca Stadium throng of 80,000, Trinidad and Tobago was in it until the final whistle.
It started out like the proverbial barn on fire and it burned fiercely until the end.
Mexico scored within 59 seconds of the start when Guillermo Franco found the back of the net off a pass from Castillo.
Then, inexplicably, things went temporarily awry. Mexico could have been four goals up within 10 minutes, but Trinidad and Tobago goalkeeper Clayton Ince made a string of huge saves to keep his team in it.
The Soca Warriors rode the pressure and gradually got back into the match. They tied it up in injury time at the end of the first half when Hayden Tinto intercepted a bad pass and beat two defenders and goalkeeper Oscar Perez with a well-judged and well-taken shot.
The lead lasted less than three minutes into the second half, when Mexico defender Oscar Rojas unleashed a fearsome shot from 30 yards that found the upper right corner of the net. Ince was left helpless.
Elsewhere, Honduras shut out El Salvador, 1-0, on a first-half goal by veteran Carlos Pavon in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, to leapfrog El Salvador into third place in the North and Central American and Caribbean region.
With five games played and five to go for each country, Costa Rica leads with 12 points, followed by the U.S. (10), Honduras (7), Mexico (6), El Salvador (5) and Trinidad and Tobago (2).
The top three countries qualify for South Africa 2010, with the fourth-place finisher playing South America’s fifth-place team for a World Cup berth.
In South America on Wednesday, group leader Brazil defeated Paraguay, 2-1, in Recife behind goals by Robinho and Nilmar. Salvador Cabanas scored for Paraguay, which dropped to third.
In Quito, Ecuador, Coach Diego Maradona’s Argentina, in fourth place, collapsed once again at altitude, losing, 2-0, to Ecuador, now fifth. The defeat was Maradona’s second qualifying setback in four qualifying games following his team’s 6-1 trouncing in Bolivia’s rarefied air in April.
Chile routed Bolivia, 4-0, in Santiago to move into second place ahead of Paraguay. Colombia also won at home, 1-0, over Peru, and Venezuela tied Uruguay as all stayed in contention.
David Beckham made his 100th start for England and played the full 90 minutes in a 6-0 rout of Andorra in London, where Wayne Rooney and Jermain Defoe each grabbed two goals. England has won all seven of its qualifying games and needs to win only one of its last three to book a ticket to South Africa.
So far, only host South Africa, as well as the Netherlands, Australia, Japan and South Korea, have qualified for the tournament, which begins one year from today.
Jones reported from Los Angeles
--
