Honduras defeated El Salvador 1-0, a very tight soccer game

Last night Honduras got the most important objective of the soccer game vs El Salvador, Honduras won with a minimal difference 1-0 and this represents a victory. If we analyze the situation from this point of view, this was not a bad result.

Let´s remember the most important thing in these games is getting as much points as possible, it doesn´t matter very much if the team played great or played not very pretty. What really counts is the result.

Honduras was with the obligation of winning the game being the local team. In this case, the score was only 1-0, but that was enough to get the 3 points.

Everybody expected a better performance from our national team, perhaps more goals, some people were very optimistic before the game, they were anticipating scores of 2-0, 3-0 and even more.

Honduras had a couple of clear chances to score more goals last night, but couldn´t do it. I remember there was a play in the very last minute where Amado Guevara, the team´s captain, got himself completely alone against the Salvadorian goalkeeper, but his shot was not on target, the ball went too high and deviated. That could have been the 2-0 which was a better result of course.

The only goal was scored by Carlos Pavon, a veteran player. Many people say that he is not in shape. But he scored, that´s a good thing. Let´s remember he also scored against Mexico in a previous match. Somehow Carlos Pavon gets a special inspiration in these type of matches, he scores the goals when Honduras most needs it.

With the final result 1-0, many Honduran fans have mixed feelings about this. Some people say that we should be worried for the next games in the qualifying round, they say if Honduras plays the next game against Costa Rica with the same level of performance of last night game, it won´t be enough to defeat Costa Rica.

Well, it´s hard to anticipate what´s going to happen in the next games, each game is different, factors around each game are different every time.

In past years Honduras has had great performances in the field, but that has not been enough to get the results we want. The final result we all want is our team to qualify to the World Cup, that´s the main objective.

So far, Honduras has a perfect performance playing as local team. Honduras has won 6 out of 6 games playing as local team since the start of the qualifyings for the World Cup last year.

We have 3 more games to play as local team in the next few months, and Honduras has to win all 3 games if we want to maintain our aspirations for going to South Africa next year.

We also have 2 games to play as visitors: against Mexico and El Salvador. If we can get a couple of points playing as visitors, and could get all remaining points playing as local, we will be in South Africa for sure.

Let´s take a quick look at the standings after 5 games have been played by every team.


We can see that Honduras is 3rd, which is enough to qualify to the World Cup. So far, the objective is being achieved. From this point of view, the result 1-0 vs El Salvador was not that bad. We're getting things done, at least so far.

Our next game is against Costa Rica on August 12th, in San Pedro Sula. We will be playing as local team again. That will be the key game of this qualifyng round for Honduras. If we win, we will give a giant step into the World Cup. On the other hand, if we draw or lose, we´re almost finished.

Anything can happen. The only thing we can do right now is waiting a couple of months for this game, and hope for the best.