Barbados-USA was a dead rubber, and the less said about the match the better. It made for a good treatment for insomniacs, although once again the match demonstrated that Freddy Adu is one of the few dynamic American players. Barbados will take a smidgen of consolation from Emmerson Boyce cracking a shot against the crossbar, and might even view a 0-1 defeat as a bit of a victory, but in the end the Bajans will wait another four years for a shot at the world stage.
Bermuda's match with Trinidad and Tobago, like Panama's match with El Salvador, turned on a controversial moment when referee Carlos Batres allowed a Bermuda substitution to occur while the deciding T&T free kick was being taken. That event will be bitterly protested -- likely to no avail -- but the focus in time must turn to moving forward from Sunday's massive display of public support and further developing the local game. Trinidad and Tobago, meanwhile, progress to the group stage with a strong feeling of relief, while local commentator Fazeer Muhammad, in a hard-hitting piece, wonders if he can endure another five months of melodrama between the players, federation, and government.
The Mexico-Belize match concluded last Saturday, but the Belize Guardian has a report on the team's "world class" performance in the first leg. The second leg went more to plan, and served as a showcase for Mexico's young players. Consider it Carlos Vela's graduation to the senior team. Now the focus has shifted to Mexico's opponents in the semifinal round, starting with Canada. Eriksson will have as brief an introduction to the Mexican team as you can imagine: two days of training and no friendly matches scheduled before the next qualifier against Honduras in Azteca. Given that Mexico's players will be a little unfamiliar with what Eriksson is asking them to do, it might do Honduras some good to go on the attack in that game.
Costa Rica have the luck of being in the weakest of the three groups, but they have very little time to prepare for that first match. Because August 20 is not an "official" match day on the FIFA calendar, clubs do not have to release players until 48 hours before the match. (Mexico's in the same situation.) The president of the domestic league has offered to allow teams that have national team players to play their matches one day early, but a final decision hasn't been made.
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