Coochiee> I actually watched Honduras v Qatar and I didn’t have the first clue what happened. As you say, Alberth Elis scored with the last kick of the match. It was an awkward, acrobatic effort and he broke his arm on the landing after the goal. So you have an equalizer at the death, an injury to Honduras’ best player and then the final whistle. There was a lot going on and as soon as the match ended both teams got in each other’s faces… this happens constantly in CONCACAF. I didn’t see too much in it, but I did note afterwards that it was Abdurisag that was sent off. Rubilio Castillo, the Honduran that was sent off with him, went on Instagram and apologized for being sent off and letting the team down (losing him and Elis was a big blow to their attack) and he said Abdurisag “recriminated him for the manner in which he celebrated the goal.” From what I saw Castillo kicked the ball back into the net just after it had gone in, otherwise the celebrations were actually pretty subdued because it was immediately clear that Elis was seriously injured.
It hasn’t been a great Gold Cup for Canada, but the lads put up a really good fight last night (and btw, Kennedy’s “goal” was a late own goal that tied it up for the Americans, though not really his fault). Herdman started the first match by using four central defenders, four wingers, one midfielder and one forward. Somehow, we came back to that exact starting XI last night, but it worked much better. Both sides were missing most of their top players and we haven’t had a chance to really experiment with our squad since before the pandemic, so six players earned a first cap and I think we’ve found some more depth, so those are all positives. It would be nice to see players played in their natural positions more often and Herdman seems to always double-down on his questionable choices rather than admitting he maybe got it wrong. A lot of the people who jumped on the bandwagon during the qualifying campaign seem to be calling for his head, but for most of us old timers we’re not overly pleased with this summer, but we understand what this tournament was about and we saw some signs of progress from the kids last night. For me the Copa America next summer is the real test. We’ll have a good sense of where we are for 2026 and if we’re still struggling there’s still time to make a change – not that I think we have the money to change the manager even if we wanted to, but our finances are still a work in progress.
