Costa Rica establishes itself in the fuzzy region between Concacaf’s Big Two and everyone else.
After qualifying for the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, narrowly missing out on 2010 and then galloping to the quarterfinals of the 2014 tournament, Costa Rica appears to now resemble as close to a sure thing in Concacaf as possible without being the U.S. or Mexico. A bold statement? Yeah, probably, but if you consider some of the Ticos playing in Europe, like Bryan Ruiz, Joel Campbell and Keylor Navas, it's not a super stretch to say they are already there on paper. And although Costa Rica owns this tournament (winning eight of 13 held so far) the manner they arrived in the U.S. -- bearing the pressures of a successful World Cup, a tumultuous coaching change and several new faces -- meant victory would be hard, but anything less a total failure.
Costa Rica won matter-of-factly. Nothing impressive, just a job done in Concacaf assisted by some shoddy Panama penalties. La Nacion boasts that victory over Guatemala in the final was secured with only one member of the World Cup squad in the starting eleven. It's a pragmatic stance: Taking into account the limited level UNCAF represents in world football, the Copa Centromamericana title must be recognized as a reaffirmation of Costa Rica's superiority in the area.
Honduras is in shambles
Los Catrachos bumbled their way past Nicaragua in the fifth-place game, which leaves them needing to beat the fifth-place finisher of the upcoming Caribbean Cup to qualify for the 2015 Gold Cup. Not exactly the stuff of World Cup attendees, no matter how rubbish you were. Honduran manager Hernan Medford can at least plead that he didn’t really pick a good squad. The problem with that argument is it's sort of his job in the first place.
After Brazil, stories emerged in the local press about locker room divisions between the wealthier extranjeros who play outside the country and those in the domestic league. Medford therefore left a lot of the World Cup team at home, bringing to the U.S. a more inexperienced, ideally less angry group of players. It backfired. Almost really badly. One could argue it would be better for Canada were Honduras to self destruct deeper into World Cup qualifying, but discord within the opposition ranks should be welcomed at any time. What’s best, Honduras still can’t buy a goal no matter who is striking. In three group stage matches against Belize, El Salvador and Guatemala, Honduras managed two goals total. Both of them came versus Belize. Both were own-goals.
Speaking of shambles, Panama may have psychological problems
Panama manager Bolillo Gomez says it's time for his charges to "remove from their heads" whatever is making them miss penalties. He says he's never been in charge of a team that's missed a penalty in four straight games before. As always, we're willing to speculate it may go deeper than just missed penalties. Think of how close Panama was to grabbing fourth spot in the Hex last fall before conceding two stoppage time goals to the U.S. at home in Panama City.
In this competition, they were up again up two goals to none against Costa Rica in the final game of the group stage before conceding two late ones. A win would have meant straight qualification to the final. And after giving up the two tying goals, Gabriel Gomez whiffed a penalty in the 90th minute. The positive spin, which Panamanian players are happy to offer, is that the team showed well despite an injection of new faces. LA Galaxy goalkeeper Jaime Penedo trumpets: "We're headed for big things."
Christ, now Guatemala has hope
Most seasoned Concacaf watchers would probably not have picked Guatemala to be one of the teams representing Concacaf in the 2016 Copa America. At least not confirmed this early in the process. But on the back of some play largely inspired by Seattle Sounders 26-year-old striker Marco Pappa, who was the competition's top scorer with four goals in four games, Los Chapines came within a goal of doing just that, losing 2-1 in the final at LA’s Memorial Coliseum to Costa Rica.
Guatemala won all three of its group matches, dumping Honduras, Belize and El Salvador to advance directly to the final. Sure, one tournament doesn’t make a program, but Guatemala has been down right Canad-esque over the past two World Cup qualifying cycles (after what, to be fair, was a pretty great run in 2006 only to be screwed over in the last game of the Hex by Mexico failing to beat Trinidad ). But when teams come out the right side of a bad stretch it can be dangerous for those rivals subsequently facing them in important matches. And yes, I am referring to the nightmare scenario of Canada being drawn into a winner-take-all early round group with this team at the start of World Cup qualifying.
Correction: This post originally stated Blas Perez missed a 90th minute penalty against Costa Rica. It was actually Gabriel Gomez.