World Cup Qualifiers: USA Starts with a Loss

The 2014 World Cup in Brazil is just over one year away, and the USA team looked like they don’t that.  USA lost 2-1 in the opening games at the last stage of the qualifiers against Honduras at San Pedro Sula on Wednesday.
The Americans started winning the match with a score by Clint Dempsey, but failed in the attempt to pursuit another one and Honduras was able to come back and win the match.

“We didn’t find our passing flow,” said USA Coach, German Jurgen Klinsmann. “We didn’t combine well enough, we didn’t hold the ball well enough.”

“They were very good today. It was a good game by them, and you have to give them credit,” said Klinsmann. “You have to give Honduras lots of compliments today. They did what they needed to do and scored a fantastic goal. We knew coming here it was going to be a difficult game, and it was.”

Honduras wasn’t that much better than the US, but they seemed to have the energy to fight to the end, something that was clearly lacking from the American team.

“It is a stretch of 10 games,” he added. “We have to fix now the mistakes we made today, and we’ll see each other again in June.”

USA will host Costa Rica on March 22nd at Colorado.  The ticos draw with Panama 2-2 at Ciudad de Panama, and a loss against them at home will complicate the US chances early in the tournament.

Three and half spots are given to be in the World Cup amongst the six teams left in CONCACAF.  The other two squads are Mexico and Jamaica, which had a scoreless draw at Mexico City, also on Wednesday.