Honduras played the role of spoiler perfectly against El Salvador on Tuesday night.
It was all set up for El Salvador.
Playing essentially a home match at Los Angeles’ Banc of California Stadium, El Salvador came into its Group C finale of the CONCACAF Gold Cup with a tremendous opportunity. El Salvador came into the match tied for first in the group with Jamaica, but the stakes were raised even more after a late goal by Curacao in the earlier match left Jamaica just one point ahead of El Salvador, meaning a win over a Honduras side already eliminated from the tournament would allow El Salvador to top a group in an international competition for the first time in program history.
Honduras however played the role of spoiler to perfection. Los Catrachos exploded for four second half goals scored by four different players, and Honduras shockingly eliminated El Salvador from the Gold Cup with a 4-0 win.
“I wasn’t expecting a result like this,” Honduras head coach Fabio Coito said. “As a coach< I only want to prepare the team and try to give them chances to get a good result."
Jorge Alvarez, Rubilio Castillo, Bryan Acosta and Emilio Izzaguirre found the back net for Honduras. Curacao was the biggest beneficiary of Honduras’ performance, which enabled Curacao to advance out of group play for the first time ever in program history.
After a scoreless first half, Honduras turned the game on its head in the second half. Los Catrachos took the lead in the 59th minute, as Michaell Chirinos dribbled down the left side, slowed down before playing a ball to Jorge Alvarez, who trailed the play. Alvarez took a touch, then fired a volley from about 19 yards out that went in at the perfect spot, beating keeper Henry Hernandez to the upper right corner to stake Honduras to the lead.
Honduras however was far from done, as they doubled their lead in the 65th minute thanks to some poor passing from El Salvador. Jonathan Jimenez passed to Darwin Ceren, but he took a bad touch, which allowed Luis Garrido to come from behind and dispossess Ceren, Ellis go the ball, made a cutting move that allowed him a sightline inside the penalty area, Ellis took the shot that beat Hernandez and the El Salvador defense far post.
"We controlled a strong team in El Salvador," Coito said. "we controlled the first half and had some chances, second half, we switched some things and were able to create some damage."
Honduras basically sealed El Salvador’s fate in the 76th minute. Captain Maynor Fernandez sent a long ball from the back, Bryan Acosta timed his run perfectly, then fought off Ivan Mancia’s defense to chase down the ball in the penalty area before chipping a ball past Hernandez far post to make a 3-0 Honduras leads. Los Catrachos put the icing on the cake in stoppage time, as Romell Quioto led a Honduras counter into the box, looked for Ellis on a short cross, which was behind Ellis, but Emilio Izzaguirre was running from the right side and thus was left with an open netter, which he buried to close the scoring.
