Gold Cup: ready for the semifinals

We are ready to watch the semifinal matches of the Gold Cup. The only four teams that remain in the competition are the favorite teams in Concacaf, it is not a surprise: USA, Costa Rica, Mexico, Honduras.

We're looking forward to see 2 very interesting matches for the semifinals next thursday. USA vs Honduras, Mexico vs Costa Rica.

USA is by far the favorite team to win the competition, so far we have seen very good performance in USA team, even though they are not using their regular players, they are using substitute players but they still are a very good team.

Let´s remember that in the 1st round of this competition, USA and Honduras already played and USA defeated Honduras 2-0. This thursday in the semifinal we're going to have some type of revenge game, Honduras has a new opportunity to play against USA.

We're anticipating a very tough game for both teams, it´s not going to be easy. USA is the favorite team to win the match as we said before, but Honduras will be a very complicated rival

In the other match we will have Mexico vs Costa Rica. Both teams won their quarterfinal games in a very easy way. Mexico beat Haiti 4-0, Costa Rica beat Guadeloupe 5-1.

This is a very complicated match, and both teams are even, there is not a clear favorite. Anyone can win, it´s complicated really to guess who will win.

For both games, my forecast is that USA and Costa Rica will advance to the final game. Honduras and Mexico will have to wait for a future opportunity to win the Gold Cup.

That´s what I think, I could be wrong but let´s wait thursday and we will know if I´m right or not.

Gold Cup: USA vs Haiti

Today we will have the final two games in Group B of Concacaf Gold Cup. US team will play against Haiti, and Honduras will play against Grenada.

As for now, US team is in 1st place of Group B with 6 points, they are already into the 2nd round of the competition. This final game against Haiti will be a rutinary game for them. They can use that game to make some training in order to be ready for the 2nd round. US team is not forced to win agains Haiti, the result won´t matter.

On the other hand, Haiti has the need to win in order to keep their chances for qualify into the 2nd round. Haiti has 3 points after they defeated Grenada a couple of days ago.

A draw wouldn´t be that bad for Haiti, if they get a draw against USA, Haiti would get 4 points and that would be enough to qualify into the 2nd round, because with a draw the worst scenario for them would be to finish in 3rd place in this group.

We have to consider that Jamaica is 3rd place in Group A with 3 points, so Haiti with 4 points would be in better position than Jamaica, and that would be enough to qualify. Let´s remember that a team in 3rd place still has a chance to qualify provided that they have more points than the 3rd place in other groups.

Even though USA doesn´t need to win this particular game, I believe they are a much better team compared with Haiti, and they will beat Haiti for sure.

The game will be played tonight in Boston, and US team should confirm they are the favorite team to win not only this group B, but they are the favorite team to win the Gold Cup as well.

Gold Cup: USA beat Honduras 2-1

As we anticipated in a previous post, US soccer team defeated Honduras in the Gold Cup match played in Washington D.C. The final result was 2-0.

We also anticipated that this was going to be a very complicated game for US team, because Honduras is not an easy rival. And it was a complicated game, it was not until minute 30 of the 2nd half that US team could score the first goal. It was a great play, and the goal was scored by Santino Quaranta.

There were only 15 minutes left in the game, and a draw 0-0 was the potential result. But US team could score the first goal, and only 4 minutes later they scored the 2nd and definite goal. That was on minute 34. This second goal was scored by Brian Ching. I watched closely that play, and it seems to be a goal made with the shoulder rather than the head. It was a pretty strange shot.

After the 2nd goal, we can say the game was over, even though there were 11 minutes left to finish the game. Honduras had no chance to get even in the game after the 2nd goal.

I believe the result was fair, US team was a better team on this particular match, they had control on the ball most of the time.

After this result, US team has 6 points, and they have already qualified for the next round. They still have one game remaining in the group against Haiti in a couple of days, but the result is not very important for them because they are already in the 2nd round, no matter what will happen in that game against Haiti.

Haiti won its game against Grenada, and Haiti now has 3 points, they are tied with Honduras in 2nd place in this group.

I believe US team continues to be the favorite team to win this competition, even though they are not using their regular players, most of the players in this tournament are substitute players. But they continue to be a very strong team.

US vs Honduras today in soccer Gold Cup

Today it's a very interesting day in the Gold Cup, we will have a very good match between USA and Honduras. It´s going to be a very hard match for both teams.

US team is the favorite to win this game I guess, they are the host team in the competition. However, let´s remember that Honduras is a very dificult team, it´s not going to be that easy for US team to beat Honduras.

Only a few weeks ago both teams played as part of the qualifyings for the World Cup, that was a very though game for US, Honduras scored the 1st goal in that game, but US team finally won 2-1.

In the game they will play today, none of the teams will use their main players, they are trying to use many alternate players in this competition in order to give them the opportunity to show their skills, and hopefully some of these players will get the chance to participate in the next few matches for the World Cup qualifyings.

The game will be played in Washington tonight, and I'm sure the stadium will be crowded by many fans, cheering for USA and cheering for Honduras as well. Thousands of honduran fans will attend this game to give their support to their Honduras national team.