CONCACAF World Cup Qualifiers
This last few days we have had three days of competition for the World Cup in Qatar in my CONCACAF zone. The results were not as evident as I thought they would be, I had the USA and Mexico with 9 points by now yet this has not happened, this is the results table (Taken from Livescore.com):
As you can see Mexico has won two and tied one game with two away games. Mexico is the only team that seems to be on course to qualify at an early moment, I think the others will have a harder time. Here is the qualification table, again taken from Livescore.com:
I am from Honduras, so I was pleasantly surprised when we were able to draw against Canada in Toronto, as I do believe because of where many Canadian players are playing right now, some in top European clubs it would be an easy win for them. So we started out with a good draw, but then came the debacle, first our manager went to El Salvador with a completely defensive form looking for a draw, we got the draw but we could have easily won that game with a little more desire.
Then in San Pedro Sula, Honduras we started out by scoring the first goal against the USA, but the manager at the end of the first half made three substitutions clearly to defend the goal.This turned out to be a grave mistake, despite having more defenders the USA team easily scored the goal that drew the match and then three defensive mistakes gave them a 4-1 win. Ok, I had the USA beating us here, they nearly always do, when we win points from USA it is usually in the US. But the mistakes made by our manager are manifest. But the USA is not really our rival, we have to win against the rivals for third place, first and second are for Mexico and USA, we have to fight hard to try to take Canada from third place.
But I think our best option is fourth place which would take us to a match against the fifth place in South America, where by the looks of it could be Ecuador or Colombia, two very tough teams but at least we would have a chance. To be truthful I do not expect much from Honduras, and I think it will end just about how it is right now, Mexico, USA, Canada and Panama in fourth place.
So sorry, pal.
With the way the table looks, fourth place for Honduras would be a very tough call, given that you still have Costa Rica ahead of you, who may still unseat Panama.
It is complex, Jamaica and Panama are more formidable opponents for Honduras than Costa Rica whom we regularly beat in qualifiers, even though apparently Costa Rica is the better of these three teams. But to reach fourth place we have to be better than four teams, certainly very difficult.
Wow... Would never have thought of Jamaica and Panama in that light. Like you said, it's a tough mountain to climb. Wish you guys all the best.