That draw from Panama is the big result of the night, particularly coupled with the Costa Rica win. After the match a few Panama players felt they panicked after the equalizing goal and even with 30 minutes left were trying to rush everything. I find that almost incomprehensible since Panama was down 2-0 in Honduras with less time left and found three goals to win. You would think that would give you the confidence to know that you can find a goal when you need it.
Canada has a few players who aren’t getting much club playing time, plus two suspensions and obviously still no Davies and it took us awhile to find some rhythm, but I felt like we were getting going and then were down to 10. It was good for us to face a hostile atmosphere like we did and we didn’t all respond well, but I think it was a good lesson. And we were great with 10 men. We had 72% of the ball in the second half, hit the bar twice, Navas made a couple of good stops. It was one of our better halves of the qualifying.
A few months back I felt that New Zealand would be better off facing Costa Rica. I still feel that way, but Costa Rica has changed some. They are starting to incorporate young players into the side. They have some wingers (Martinez and Torres) who are good on the ball and have some quality and two teenage wingers (Jewison and Suarez) who also look promising. That has allowed Joel Campbell to play up top. In the last window he had almost a free role and was their best player in two of the matches. When he’s on the wing, it has been easy for the game to pass him by. They’ve played Campbell as a 9 and he can get isolated there too. Costa Rica has also turned to a young defensive midfielder named Galo. The Costa Rican fans don’t seem to rate him, but I think he helps them. He doesn’t have the passing their other options do, but he can actually run.
By changing their lineup, they have essentially sat Ruiz, Borges and Venegas. Thursday Borges started and they sat the other d-mid Tejeda. And Borges has a great range of passing, tons of quality, but he needs some help if he’s going to play. He got the goal, but in the second half, Costa Rica subbed in Ruiz and Tejeda and had Borges in… and individually those are three pretty good players with experience and quality, but collectively that is a slow, old group. So the question is what do they do in a one-off playoff? Trust the old guard that frankly wasn’t getting it done in the first half of qualifying or start some of the new faces?
The other thing about Costa Rica in the playoffs is that they haven’t had their best rightback Cristian Gamboa during qualifying. He was finally uninjured and then caught covid. He would be an upgrade. They were also missing Duarte from Lavante and he’s their best central defender, but they have a lot of depth there, so less of a loss.
I’m not sure the U.S. should have gone for it as they did in Mexico. The Azteca is not what it used to be (even the air isn’t as
shark), but it’s a hard place to play. Some of the most eye-opening results in qualifying (Jamaica 0 Panama 3; Honduras 0 Jamaica 2) have come immediately after the losing team had gone to the Azteca. There was a lot of debate in the U.S. about whether to start the best XI or not and there counter argument was against “conceding the points to Mexico” I think the U.S. could have rotated the squad and still gotten a result. I didn’t think it was a one or the other. The U.S. was already without its best player in qualifying (McKennie), plus Dest from Barca is also hurt. Now Yedlin and Weah are suspended. They’re going to have to use their No. 4 RB and most of their best players just played 90 minutes in altitude. It’s hard to imagine them losing to Panama at home, but there are a lot of very nervous American soccer fans around.
No one expected Panama to do anything in qualifying and then we’ve all been waiting for their results to trail off and they were starting to look like a team of destiny, but last window they dominated Costa Rica away and lost and then they have a lead at home to a poor and dispirited Honduras and blow it? I don’t have any faith in Panama putting together a performance to get a win in Orlando. I should mention, El Salvador is often a really hard place to play for teams. I think with them out, it shouldn’t be too intense of an atmosphere, but I don’t think Costa Rica getting three points in San Salvador is a fait acomplit.
The other thing is that it was noted upthread that the U.S. has never won in Costa Rica… even more than the Azteca, San Jose seems to be the hardest place for them to play. I find it very confusing. Costa Rica is usually pretty good, most CONCACAF teams are tough at home, there’s altitude, but the new national stadium has a track, it’s nothing like the crazy atmosphere of Saprissa Stadium… but the U.S. still struggled. They lost 4-0 in Costa Rica four years ago. They desperately do not want to need something out of that match.
Canada will play a very strong side against Jamaica, but now that our unbeaten run is over I have a hard time imagining us playing our top players for 270 minutes in a week. If the Panama match doesn’t mean anything to us, I do think we’ll rotate the squad some. Ironically, winning would help us get into Pot 3 (I’m honestly not as fussed about that as most seem to, you can get a crap draw in Pot 3 and a great draw in Pot 4), but what would really help us get into Pot 3 is the U.S. either not qualifying or going into the playoffs. In fact that might be enough to move us up (if and who upsets in Africa is going to have more bearing than anything we do IMO). So in a weird way, losing to Panama could help our Pot 3 odds more than winning.
I am nervous for Sunday which is silly since we have a six point lead and an 11 goal lead on Costa Rica, but I really want a comprehensive win over Jamaica and big celebration.