Now, winning in Guatemala is no easy task. Winning anywhere on the road isn’t actually, so it’s an excellent start to this World Cup qualifying round to pick up three points.

In spite of the win though, I took away only one really positive thing from this match, the knowledge that Howard may be the best keeper right now America has ever had. He looks fantastic out there physically and mentally. I loved it when he got in Ruiz’s face after The Fish (not so inconspicuously) kicked him in his grill. He may be the kind of leader our team could really rally around.  Read more... (422 words, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Mexico needed a pair of late goals from Pavel Pardo to avoid defeat at their fabled Azteca Stadium on Thursday, while the USA earned a hard fought victory in Guatemala City.

The U.S. match report is here. In the other match in the U.S. group Trinidad and Tobago got two goals from Keon Daniel as they beat Cuba 3-1 in Havana. Wednesday’s results sets up a make or break game for Guatemala next month as they must travel to Trinidad. They need at least a point from this game if they are to keep their world cup qualifying hopes alive.  Read more... (214 words, estimated 51 secs reading time)

It wasn’t pretty but the U.S. Men’s National Team earned their first-ever FIFA World Cup qualifying win in Guatemala on Wednesday night behind a Carlos Bocanegra goal. It was a hard-fought match in very hostile circumstances that saw seven yellow cards, two red cards and 40 total fouls.

If you have not seen the the flying elbow on Eddie Lewis by Guatemala’s Gustavo Cabrera head over to ussoccer.com to catch it. The Macho man Randy Savage would have been proud of it! Remarkably the Guatemala press did not think the challenge warranted a card and the consensus was that the referee was in the tank for the U.S.  Read more... (507 words, estimated 2:02 mins reading time)