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Young U.S. team goes against improving El Salvador
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Published: September 5, 2009
SANDY, Utah
The United States is not quite in second place and barely ahead of fourth as the stretch run of qualifying for soccer's World Cup begins.
Points are precious with only four games left, and the margin between being in or out of next summer's tournament in South Africa is slim.
The U.S. will play El Salvador at 8:11 p.m. today (ESPN Classic, Time Warner Ch. 142) and will enter the match clinging to one of the three guaranteed spots for the finals.
"None of us were under any illusions. We've known for a long time how difficult qualifying is -- particularly in this last stage," U.S. goalie Tim Howard said. "It's never easy."
The United States (3-1-2) is seeking a sixth straight World Cup berth. Entering today's matches in the North and Central America and Caribbean group, Costa Rica leads with 12 points. Honduras and the U.S. are tied for second with 10 but Honduras leads on goal differential, and Mexico is fourth with nine points.
In other matches today, Honduras will play at Trinidad and Tobago, and Costa Rica will play at Mexico. The three teams will qualify for the World Cup. and the fourth-place team will have a chance to make the field in a playoff.
The Americans will play another qualifier Wednesday at Trinidad and Tobago, and winning is the only way they can ensure that they stay in the top three.
"We're going into this thinking we need two wins. That would set us up real nicely for qualifying," said defender Carlos Bocanegra, the U.S. captain.
Today's game is a rematch of a 2-2 draw played in San Salvador in March that left players from both sides disappointed, feeling that they had let two more points slip away. El Salvador led 2-0 but couldn't hold off a U.S. rally in the second half.
"It's a game we were winning, then the United States came harder and it ended in a tie," Coach Carlos de los Cobos of El Salvador said.
Howard had to sit out the first meeting to serve a one-game suspension for receiving his second yellow card in qualifying. The Americans felt they had a chance at a win and three points instead of just the single point for a tie, but they played from behind most of the game.
The United States salvaged a point on goals by Jozy Altidore in the 77th minute and Frankie Hejduk in the 88th.
"There were parts of the game where we felt we should have been better," Coach Bob Bradley of the U.S. said. "We were certainly pleased at the end, given the challenge of being down two goals on the road and to fight back. That said a lot about the mentality of the team. That was the big positive."
Bradley has been using a younger, less-experienced lineup, and he stayed with that for El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago. Several players impressed him during the U.S. run in the Gold Cup earlier this summer. Four players on the roster this week, including locals Kyle Beckerman and Robbie Findley of Real Salt Lake, have not played in a World Cup qualifier at this stage.
Although El Salvador (1-3-2) is stuck near the bottom of the group with five points, Los Cuscatlecos have been improving rapidly under de los Cobos. El Salvador is up to No. 85 in the FIFA world rankings after being ranked 169th three years ago.
U.S. defender Oguchi Onyewu is suspended for today's game after receiving his second qualifying yellow card during a 2-1 loss last month in Mexico. Even with the hole in the U.S. defense, the Americans are expecting a conservative approach from El Salvador in front of a hostile U.S. crowd.
"They'll be a different team here than the way they played there. They'll probably be very defensive minded. Our job is to break them down, try to score a goal early," forward Landon Donovan of the U.S. said. "The longer the game stays at 0-0, the better it is for them."
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