CONCACAF Gold Cup 2005 (1 Viewer)

[swag]

This tournament is so well renowned, and deservedly so, that it's at the semi-finals and I've yet to see it mentioned anywhere on Juventuz. So here's a token thread on it, as I've been following this rather farcical international cup tournament thus far.

So who's in it? CONCACAF teams of course - North and Central America, including the Caribbean. This year that includes Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, Guatemala, Honduras, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, Trinidad & Tobago, and USA. But several years back they also started inviting interlopers... Brazil, etc. This year, it includes Columbia and South Africa as the invited guests.

Mexico has largely dominated this competition. But as a reflection of this competition's stature, a number of Mexico's internationals from the Confederation's Cup sat this one out. Mexico surprisingly lost their first match to South Africa, but then won their group by defeating Guatemala and Jamaica.

So the quarterfinals were held this weekend... some of the highlights.

USA 3 - 1 Jamaica
All DaMarcus Beasley for the US. Even give credit to him for the shot deflected in by teammate, Josh Wolff, for the first goal. Keller also made some killer saves, including an early PK. This was never a contest. USA plays the winner of...

Honduras 3 - 2 Costa Rica
After taking a pretty stunning 3-0 halftime lead, Costa Rica showed guts and fight in this one. I was wondering if I'd see another comeback in the vein of Liverpool- Milan in the CL Final, but Honduras locked down defensively for the last 10 minutes and held on for the win. They next face the US.

Columbia 2 - 1 Mexico
What a strange game. Columbia pulled the upset, but Mexico again looked like a vulnerable side without it's usual cast of characters. What was wild was the 40-meter game winner by Columbia's Abel Aguilar. He barely made it to the ball around a defender near the touch line and just flicked it in a giant arch, Hail Mary style, towards the goal. Mexico's goalie, Moises Munoz (no Oswaldo Sanchez), was well off his line and not expecting it, and the ball cleared under the crossbar and landed firmly in the middle of the goal box. One of the wilder shots I've seen all year. Columbia faces the winner of...

Panama 1 - 1 South Africa (Panama 5:3 on PKs)
Defensive lapses in poor offside trapping lead to both regulation goals. This one seemed headed for PKs 20 min before the end of regulation. Panama keeper, Jaime Penedo, was key... as he effectively blocked two shots. One was rekicked as a result of what looked like Penedo getting a step off of his line in advance of the kick... which seemed rather tame given the three steps Jerzy Dudek got on Pirlo in the CL final this year.

So it's Panama-Columbia and USA-Honduras. Looks like a USA-Columbia final, IMO, which could be interesting...

And yes, I've decided that Pablo Ramirez is my favorite announcer in all of world football. Some think he's absurd (and he most definitely is), but the Univision man is the master jazz riffer of play-by-play football commentary. How that guy can shake the rafters with his goal-calling excitement, immediately drop it 20 levels to make a five-word restrained sidebar comment, and instantaneously pick up where he left off in his fully animated Tarzan-like yell is pretty incredible...

Univision is already showing TV commercials for the 2006 World Cup, as they're covering all games again. I'm psyched. Since 1994, I will never go back to brain-dead English commentary again. Latin America has football announcing hands-down over the rest of the world.

 

Buy on AliExpress.com

[king Ale]

Honduras made me surprise.I think they will take USA in trouble.

 

[Juve_The_Best]

i can't believe it. USA throw to the Final after scoring 2 goals in the last 5 Mins while they were down by 1 goal in the First half!

 

[swag]

Well, I just watched the game. I'm not actually surprised at the result. Honduras benefitted mostly from some very slack and brain-dead moves on the USA defense (resulting in a score before even the 1' mark if not for an awesome game by Keller in goal). But by the second half with Honduras ahead, they fell back into a rare long ball offensive game -- with a lot of offsides and mostly the ball sitting in their half of the pitch.

USA was laying on the offensive pressure for the last 45 minutes, and after a lot of bad luck (hitting woodwork, a blown would-be PK that should have been awarded for Beasley, etc.), something was bound to go through. What the US capitalized on was a Honduras that played on their heels for a 1-0 win for half the match -- and their defensive marking was at times as terrible as their own.

The game winner was disgraceful, to be honest, with the nearest Honduras defender 3 meters away from Onyewu on a free kick...and him immediately pointing fingers at his teammates for blown assignments.

What an ugly game. A lot of stretchers, a red carded coach (Bruce Arena needs to shed a few metric tons, btw), and one-on-one defense played so poorly that it would make Lecce blush.

Bigger surprise was Panama over Columbia 3-2. How Panama made it that far is beyond me. But Columbia continues to crumble when it counts -- a pattern they've been living up to for a while now.

 

[Hydde]

Hey we made it to the final =P


Swag im with u... after the horrid perfoance in the first half of the world cup qualifications, i didnt had my hopes high for this cup.


Anyways.. i think that in the world cup games.. we played way below our performance (even when we are not that great)... but in this cup we have played like before the final phase of the world cup games.


well im more than satisfied and if we lose against USA , it will rally dont matter at this stage

 

[swag]

Congrats, Arturo -- Panama has surprised a lot of people this time around.

 

[king Ale]

I really feel sorry for Honduras,but IMO US deserves to win the cup.though Panama is a very good team.

 

[swag]

Wow. What a final today. Panama kept to their form, which has continued to surprise everyone. While they had their moments while they looked to be killing time (e.g., in injury time at the end of the first half), hoping to take the match to a draw for PKs, they were threatening regularly throughout the match. Panama seemed to have the speed advantage on the counterattack, which caught the U.S. offguard a lot. If not for another fantastic match by Casey Keller in goal and a lot of unlucky shots hitting the post, Panama could have come home with the Gold Cup.

Panama goalie Jaime Penedo was really on this final too -- you could see he was often in the right place at the right time, and his confidence grew throughout the match. The U.S. poured on the attack towards the end of regulation, and Panama had the occasional counterattack. For a 0-0 game in regulation, the game was far more exciting than the score might indicate (contrast with the 2003 CL Final).

In the end, it was a big dose of Casey Keller and the luck of the post that knocked Panama out, 3-1 on PKs. Panama really played a final, and a tournament, that they can be historically proud of.

The American fan situation was amusing as always. In the Honduras-USA semifinal, my favorite TV image was of the lone USA fan standing and waving a USA flag while sitting in a sea of blue and white made of dejected Honduras fans. (For those not in the know, Central American teams routinely pull bigger fan turnouts at home USA soccer matches.) In this final, the USA fans were out, and they had face paintings of "Estados Unidos" on them. Even Casey Keller and Landon Donovan immediately took on the post-match interviews in Spanish.

Let's see -- with the USA ranked ridiculously 6th in the world (and Panama something like 93rd), winning silverware like this can only mean their ranking must go up now.

 

[Bjerknes]

Yippeee, we won the Gold Cup.

Damnit FIFA, we should be ranked 5th now.

 

[king Ale]

a team who beat Panam in penalty shoot-outs at their home should be the 5th team of FIFA ranking?

 

[swag]

FWIW, it's a running joke, King Ale.

Neither Andy nor I, nor anyone else for that matter, lend any credibility to the USA being ranked 6th internationally right now. So the joke now being that defeating the 93rd ranked Panama on PKs in an international final must now improve their stature even more...

 

[Bjerknes]

To be honest I cannot even place my country in the top ten of world rankings, but as we all know these ranking systems mean jack merda when it all comes down to it.

 

[Dragon]

++ [ originally posted by Hydde ] ++
Hey we made it to the final =P


Swag im with u... after the horrid perfoance in the first half of the world cup qualifications, i didnt had my hopes high for this cup.


Anyways.. i think that in the world cup games.. we played way below our performance (even when we are not that great)... but in this cup we have played like before the final phase of the world cup games.


well im more than satisfied and if we lose against USA , it will rally dont matter at this stage

jajajaja, yo ni sabia que panama tenia equipo de futbol - hasta tienen un estadio?

 

[K10]

so Trinidad's out? jee, i missed that.

 

[Hydde]

++ [ originally posted by fabiana ] ++



jajajaja, yo ni sabia que panama tenia equipo de futbol - hasta tienen un estadio?

jajaj dejate de pendejadas bien q sabias y ahora vienes dike con feeling de q nos abes :fero:





Well swag said everything.. we faced a very good team and the odds were against us. In the end the game was very balanced and was like most of us predicted here.. with US attacking and panama using the counterattack that was so efficient thru the whole cup..... well like swag said.. we were kind of unlucky with some shots....and the north american players wasted some chances where Penedo was already beaten.... so in the end i think that the PK shoot out was fair to select a winner..

after al both played a good game and sadly we were not as focused in PKs like in the Southafrica game.

IM happy about Penedo tho , just some ours ago was bought by Cagliari... so maybe we will see Penedo in some games this season.... ill pray to see him against Juve this time XD.


Its fun because U know Panama is a very small country...and on sunday it was a big party here...and the Penedo family did a freaking insane big party in their neighborhood and me and some friends went there to chek it.... jaja on monday because of the celebrations , i wasnt able to go to university XD.

 

[Juve_The_Best]

wohoo . we got ur player Hydde !

we just singed tejada to play with us for 3 years contract !!

unbelievable player and i am sure he is Ganna help us to win the asian champions league again after 2003 !