First off I would like to vent a little bit about the awful commentary that was provided for the games on the CONCACAF website last. I do appreciate that they are providing free streaming but it would have been nice if they got someone with a bit of experience and quality to commentate on the matches. Even the majority of local broadcast journalism students in LA would probably have done a better job. I turned the audio off and just watched the video feed and it made things a lot better. The other problem I had was with some of the kit choices. It was a bit of an assault on my eyes trying to watch the bright yellow and green of Jamaica taking on the green and red of grenada so at least all the blue and white of the second match between Honduras and Guatemala was a nice change.
As I just mentioned the first match was between Jamaica and Grenada and it continued the trend of lopsided score lines. Jamaica were the clear favourites for this one since unlike Grenada they have actually scored a goal in the Gold Cup before. The match followed the expected script as Jamaica were in control of things from start to finish as they only allowed Grenada one shot the entire match and even that was a fairly speculative effort. Jamaica in the end scored 4 goals of their own but that was a fair few less then they probably should have been able to net based on the run of play. They scored 4 chances but I can think of a handful of other chances that they wasted so I am not exaggerating to say that they probably could have won this match by 6 or 7 without much difficulty. Ryan Johnson of San Jose was probably at the centre of most of the games excitement as he was one of 4 different scorers for Jamaica and also guilty of missing some real good chances as he managed to take 5 decent chances.
The lack of conversion did not cost Jamaica at all though as at the end of the day the 4-0 win is going to be enough to see them sitting on top of Group B after the first round of play. They will need a better effort in their next two games though as Grenada are clearly the weakest team of the bunch and will be lucky to even come away with a single point. Personally I will be cheering for them to at least get one goal before the end of the group stage so they can put that behind themselves.
In the late game Honduras took on Guatemala in what was by far the best game of the 2011 Gold Cup so far. It was certainly worth staying up to watch if you enjoy a good intense matchup between two teams that were going all in for every tackle and loose ball. After seeing 14 goals in the first three matches it was nice to finally see a close contest.
The opening moments of the game saw what would be one of the best chances of the match as Carlo Costly missed an open net in the first minute for Honduras before Carlos Ruiz almost opened the scoring for Guatemala at the other end. I quickly found myself getting behind Guatemala in this game as they were the underdogs and they were giving Honduras everything they could handle in this one. Both teams were tackling hard and fighting for the ball so it was kind of surprising that the first half ended with no cards being handed out. It was a half where as I was watching it I expected a goal to come at any moment as both teams were fairly open and the play was quite fast paced and back and forth. The second half once again lacked for goals but it had a bit of everything else but shamefully Mr. Gutiérrez stole the show in the second half with the cards he handed out. Personally I think that the red card which he gave to Guatemala's Gustavo on 61 minutes was more then a little harsh. Gustavo did make a hard tackle but he got a lot of the ball and though I can see it being a foul and maybe a yellow card it was certainly very harsh to send him off for that. Guatemala were just trying to hang on from then on but a second yellow card for Medina saw them go down to 10 men for the final 15 minutes of the match. Guatemala did manage to find a way to hang on even if I was less then impressed with some of the stalling that they engaged in with several players going down like they were shot and spending several minutes on the ground. In the end the game was 0-0 but it was a more exciting match then any of the high scoring games were.
For me the Honduras-Guatemala match was the real start to the Gold Cup. Watching such an intense battle between two teams who clearly don't like each other got me really fired up for tonights 1812 Derby between Canada and the United States. Then when the ref came in and ruin the game with a needless sending off I got even more fired up with memories of 2007 coming flooding back. Remember the Carlos Bocanegra tackle on Julian De Guzman that was not a red card, well that tackle was about 20 times worse then last nights. And that is not to even mention this:
Game Day! Let's Go Canada! Go all 1812 on the Americans!
8 PM EST on Rogers Sportsnet One. You better all be watching!
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