World Cup Qaulifying: Guatemala Preview

August 19th, 2008 | by: Brooks Peck |

The men’s national team faces Guatemala tomorrow in the semifinal round of qaulifying for World Cup 2010. As the senior squad looks to help us forget about the embarrassment that was the Olympic campaign with a Kenny Cooper-less side (though, DaMarcus Beasley was a late addition), I must say I have a hard time getting excited about this step on the road to South Africa. I mean, it’s Guatemala. A walk-over should be a given — and if it’s not, then we have a problem.

Led by LA Galaxy’s Carlos Ruiz, Guatemala is currently 100th in the FIFA rankings and has never qualified for the World Cup. They did win the CONCACAF Gold Cup in 1967, but I’m pretty sure none of those guys are still on the team.

Other fun facts about Guatemala: They have the lowest literacy rate in Central America; 1.5% of their population is Mormon; their currency is named after an indigenous bird (the quetzal), whose feathers were used as money by ancient Mayans; and they are among the 10 poorest countries in Latin America.

Guatemalan national team trains with help from Canadians

The one troublesome fact about this fixture is that it’s in Guatemala and the U.S. is 1-4-4 all-time there, with the only victory coming in 1988. Then again, the U.S. has never lost to them in World Cup qaulifying (4-0-4).

So what do you think, is this one a given or is it worth putting a few quetzals on the underdog?

(P.S. The match is Wednesday night at 10 pm ET and on ESPN2 here in the states. Also, there might be some live blog action in these here parts, so be sure to check back tomorrow night.)

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Bart

You know this arrogant American crap wouldn’t ring so empty if the USMNT didn’t completely suck outside of CONCACAF…
Brooks Peck

Ha! If you thought any part of the above post was serious, that’s pretty funny.
Bart

I did.. You hurt my feelings
Bart
CW

Miss Guatemala looks fairly hot though. So they’ve got that going for them…which is nice.
Ramiro

I am seriously unimpressed with the side the U.S. has chosen to take down there. It looks like we are looking at a 0-0 or 1-0 game.
Robert

I continue to wonder why Bob Bradley seems to leave out the only creative players the usa has to offer…not to mention the only forwards that seem to try to take some responsibility for scoring goals. Brian ching does nothing but hang around the net and toe poke misplayed balls past the keeper… Landon donovan disappears and pees his pants anytime he plays outside of the U.S… and Eddie Johnson for some reason was amazing when nobody expected anything from him and now sucks when people actually think he should do more than make offside runs… Don’t even get me started on pablo and damarcus in the midfield and the fact that Bob can’t even play his own son where he should be.

Bob is a step up from Bruce but he’s still not there yet.