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Morning (World Cup qualifying) Ticker: Guatemala downs Cuba, Mexico beats Canada and Peru ties Argentina

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Guatemala moved into a tie for second place in CONCACAF Qualifying Group A with its comprehensive 4-1 win against Cuba on Wednesday night in Guatemala City. Toronto FC striker Carlos Ruiz scored a pair for Guatemala, which pulled even with Trinidad & Tobago, which lost to the United States, 3-0, on Wednesday.

Cuba actually opened the scoring in the 25th minute off a finish from star forward Roberto Linares, but Guatemala responded immediately at Estadio Mateo Flores, with Ruiz equalizing in the 38th before giving ‘Los Chapines’ the lead in the 55th minute.

Now Guatemala will play host to Trinidad & Tobago on Oct. 11 in the match that could ultimately decide which team joins the United States in the final round of CONCACAF Qualifying next year.

Mexico dims Canada’s chances with a win

Escape Mexico with a point. That’s all Canada was hoping for when it took on the unbeaten Mexicans in CONCACAF Qualifying Group B action. A tie seemed possible as both teams took the field in the second half with the match scoreless, but headers from Omar Bravo and Rafael Marquez changed all that as ‘El Tri’ beat Canada, 2-1, to move to 3-0 in qualifying and keep Canada winless after three matches.

The victory also marked Cuauhtemoc Blanco’s final match for Mexico. Blanco retired from the national team after a 13-year career that saw him score 35 goals for Mexico.

Here are some highlights from the match:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zFVgWfLcsi8&hl=en&fs=1]

The Canadians are in deep trouble after Honduras beat Jamaica, 2-0, to go five points clear of both Canada and Jamaica for the second spot in the group with just three matches remaining. Canada’s only hope at this point is to win all three remaining games. The first of those matches comes next, on Oct. 11, against Honduras in San Pedro Sula.

Peru stuns Argentina with late equalizer

Argentina was expected to walk over Peru in their CONMEBOL World Cup qualifier, but Peru didn’t let that happen. Instead of suffering yet another defeat, Peru salvaged a point, and some pride, when Johan Fano headed home a last-gasp equalizer in Peru’s 1-1 tie vs. Argentina in Lima.

Here is the goal:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZPbWWHs1VE&hl=en&fs=1]

The tie drops Argentina into a tie for third place in CONMEBOL qualifying with Brazil, which tied Bolivia in Brazil. Uruguay and Ecuador also drew while Chile smashed Colombia, 4-0, in one of the more stunning results of the day.

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These are just some of the stories from Wednesday’s loaded World Cup qualifying schedule. You had Theo Walcott’s hat-trick leading England past Croatia. There was Denmark’s rally to score two late goals and beat Portugal in Portugal. Then there was Germany’s 3-3 shootout against Finland as well as France’s much-needed win against Serbia.

Feel free to share your thoughts on these, and any other World Cup qualifying stories, in the comments section below.

Comments

  1. jloome,

    it’s not about population, it’s about development. canada’s population is about the same size as most of the south american countries (other than Brazil) and they would wipe canada out. Canada lost to Honduras whose population is 7 million. Come up with a decent argument.

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  2. i think more surprising than the peru tie with argentina is brazil tying a really bad bolivian team in brazil. they also were up a man for almost 40 minutes as well!!

    peru has seemed to really step up against the south american giants tying both brazil and argentina at home. however, i went to the peru vs. ecuador game in quito last year and they were absolutely horrible. ecuador dominated from start to finish. to make it out of conmebol, you have to get points out of the giants, but you also need 3 points against the smaller teams.

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  3. Word! Peru put up a beauty of a show last night! I woke up my wife and kids screaming like a madman with that last-minute goal by Gavilan Fano.:)

    And I gotta agree with the other posters about CONMEBOL qualifying: it’s intense and a great experience!

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  4. How about Costa Rica, 3 games under Rodrigo Kenton and 3 wins, score 11 goals agains 1.

    This team is working really good, not too much talking but getting good resulats

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  5. That’s too bad about Canada. Despite being in a tough group (for CONCACAF) they had an opportunity to advance to the hex and get into the World Cup. I felt that Canada being in the World Cup could really help the sport grow up north. And maybe that would give them the incentive to host a World Cup of its own. However, they gave up too many soft goals (how are they losing an aerial battle to Omar Bravo?!?!) and are on the brink of elimination.

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  6. Canada has 30 million people, you losers. If the U.S. tried qualifying by picking from a pool with a smaller population than California, do you really think it would qualify?

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  7. It was a massive showing by the Peruvian squad who had a good chunk of starters out. That’s what makes this tie so special although I anticipated 3 points after the way they took it to the Argentines last night in front of a festive crowd in Monumental Stadium.

    Although Argies had a little more of the possession (55%), Peru created chance after chance with at least 10 more shots on goal than the Argies. It’s too bad Schalke’s Farfan was not called in and that Hamburg’s Guerrero is suspended for 4 more games in that 0-6 debacle vs Uruguay.

    But our younger kids (Chavez of Brujas and Zambrano of Schalke) took care of biz and some of the local league players stood head-to-head with the strong Argie team, who also had some starters out as well.

    Congrats to Peru on a marvelous show. I hope they don’t take the foot off the pedal. Yes, they’re in 9th place with 7 points but they’re only 6 points behind 2nd place Brasil.

    You CANNOT top South American qualifying!

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  8. luxembourg beating the Swiss is big, but I would argue that Denmark winning in Lisbon is even bigger.

    Posted by: northzax | September 11, 2008 at 11:39 AM

    Nope!!!

    Remember Danmark has won a European Championship and they tend to put together good teams. Luxembourg hadn’t won a match in like 36 years.

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  9. The biggest upset yesterday was Luxembourg’s 2-1 win over the Swiss in Switzerland. A rare victory let alone on the road against a Swiss team that should have dusted them. Ashame that no one is talking about this one. Macedonia also looked great against the Dutch.

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  10. Wow, CONMEBOL WCQs are a heart-stopping experience! When you have the bottom-place teams duking it out with the top guns and showing face, it doesn’t get any better than that! ARRIBA PERU KARAJO!!!!!!!

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  11. I too don’t understand how Brazil could fail to score at home against Bolivia when up a man for 40 minutes. They didn’t have Kaka, but still…

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  12. lots of back and forth in CONMEBOL. Chile just destroys Colombia after getting manhandled by Brazil. And is Uruguay for real? Talk about a team that I know nothing about.

    Funny but it almost looks like the top 5 are getting solidified, less than 1/2 way thru.

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  13. Another result as bad and Dunga is out as head coach of Brazil. The game last night was a scoreless tie at home to Bolivia (bottom of the South American standings), with Bolivia playing with 10 men for most of the second half.

    When I told my Brazilian wife the result, her response: “Well, some of those players think they’re playing in high-heels.” Ouch.

    Can you imagine the BigSoccer crowd if that was the situation the US faced?

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  14. Congrats to the Peruvians, drawing arguably the best team in the world in the clutch will help re-energize their chances, like it did for Ecuador. On our end, we deserved at least a point at Uruguay, maybe more for defending the 1st 25 minutes or so of constant Uruguay pressure and then controlling the game the rest of the way.

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  15. Blanco played only seven minutes in his final match, and during that time the only thing he managed to do was get a yellow card for diving. A fitting end to his national career.

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  16. Don’t be so hasty in stating that the Guat vs T&T winner has the leg-up.

    If the US wins versus Cuba, regardless of the result of the game between T&T vs Cuba, we are thru to the next round. If we win, we’ll have either a 8 or 7 point advantage over the 3rd place team with 6 points still available (from 2 remaining games).

    Once we are thru to the next round, it’s really up to BB to determine how competitively he wants to play against T&T & Guat. I can’t imagine that our first teamers will be playing against either T&T or Guat *if* we win versus Cuba.

    For example, what if he plays our 2nd team versus T&T (on the road) and team 1.5 versus Guat (at home). If either T&T or Guat gets a win against us (after we’re guaranteed to move on), that would be a huge swing for either team.

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  17. Finally some life in Peru’s team. This team played a lot different than the team that had Pizarro, Farfan and Guerrero. Those individual players are good but it seems yesterday’s team played more as a team and they were more hungry. They ran after loose balls and played with more emotions. It was great to see Peru tied at the last minute cause last night they were up to par with Argentina.

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