World Cup Buzz

The United States crushed Barbados but not much can be taken from the match. Barbados missing four of their five best players got rolled by a fired up US squad 8-0. While the scoreline was impressive, many concerns still persist for the U.S. like keeping proper spacing between attackers on the pitch and players knowing their respective roles while on the pitch. I’ll save these discussions and criticisms for another day because the US did what they had to do to avoid the pitfalls others faced in qualifying this past weekend. The issues with the US remain today the same as they were last week. However, other nations that the US competes with such as Mexico are showing themselves to be much weaker than anticipated.

Mexico’s performance Sunday against a team ranked 51 spots below Barbados in the FIFA world rankings made the rest of CONCACAF look like world beaters. Mexico used two controversial calls to notch late goals against the 172nd ranked team in the world, Belize 2-0. In what can only be described as a shocking display of football, Mexico was so bad that from minute thirty onward Belize was tempted go forward and attack. Particularly bad for Mexico from my eyes was Andres Guardado who was repeatedly dispossessed and several times lost his composure.

Mexico’s two goals were controversial. A late foul call just outside the box in minute 67 led to a free kick which Carlos Vela cleaned up for a goal, and then deep into stoppage time after a Mexican shot went far wide, The referee stopped play and called a penalty because a Belize defender had clipped the Mexican shot taker on his follow through after the show was taken. Jared Borgetti, calmly booked the PK, and Mexico ran out a 2-0 victor. This performance paled in comparison to the impressive displays provided by Mexico’s likely second round group opponents: Honduras is already through to group stage with an aggregate 6-2 win over Puerto Rico, Canada crushed St Vincent 3-0 in the first leg even without injured Rob Friend, and Jamaica beat the Bahamas 7-0 in the first leg of their series, and 6-0 in the second leg.  Rene Simoes return as manager of the “Reggee Boys” seems to have had the desired affect at least initially for the Jamaicans. So in other words, Sven Goran Eriksson has a momentous task ahead of him, as Mexican football is suffering from a crisis of confidence and run of about two years of indifferent, if not simply poor results.

Trinidad and Tobago has been in a steady decline since thrilling the world in Germany 2006. Now T&T is in serious jeopardy of being dismissed from World Cup 2008 qualifying just two years after participating in the last tournament. Bermuda went to Port of Spain and won 2-1 yesterday. If Bermuda advances they will be grouped with the US, Guatemala and the Cuba/Antigua winner. Panama struggled to defeat El Salvador 1-0 at home and now must be considered a slight underdog in this weekend’s return leg. Costa Rica who has qualified for the previous two world cups and actually won the CONCACAF hexaganol qualifying for the 2002 cup, had to mount a valiant comeback to draw Grenada 2-2. The second leg is this weekend in San Jose.

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