Gold Cup highlights

July 10th, 2009 | by: Hugo | Comments Off

Costa Rica will play against Canada today in Miami, FL. It will be a tough one tonight; Canada has always played a very solid football against the Ticos in the previous Gold Cup tournaments. In fact, Canada has always taken these tournaments very seriously and they even became Champions in 2000. Taking this into account, I don´t really understand why they always make crappy appearances in FIFA qualifiers.

I must say, I am impressed with the tournament´s good outcome so far, in terms of packed stadiums and fair play (not taking into account last night´s Aguirre´s horrible performance). You obviously cant compare the Gold Cup´s quality with the recent Confederations Cup, but it has been entertaining to watch on TV. I think the organizers should pay more attention to security issues. The game between Costa Rica and El Salvador was packed with Salvadoran fans who threw bottles and trash to the field. I also watched this behavior in last night´s match between Mexico and Panama.

I´m not pleased with the Ticos performance so far, the players lack in rhythm (most of the players were in vacations), there have been many defensive mistakes, and the strikers have not been very tuned in. Costa Rica lost against El Salvador because of two major defensive mistakes, plus the Salvadoran team was ultra defensive. Costa Rica had much more ball control but did not find the key to the game and lost in a fair match. Then in a horrible match, the Ticos defeated the Reggae Boys only by one goal when Jamaica was playing with 10 men most of the game. I hope the Ticos win tonight in order to advance to the quarter finals. Costa Rica is missing some key players that couldn’t joint the squad because the Gold Cup is not in FIFA´s official schedule. Still…I am expecting more from the team who currently stands first in the World Cup´s final qualifying round.