1;0 USA. Pulisic early goal. 

Gotchu fam.

First, a little about the region.

North America (minus Canada) is king, and Costa Rica is pretty strong. The Caribbean is 90 percent minnows playing on swampy, pitted cricket fields. And Central America is home to the middling sides in the region.

The Central American teams break down into 3 tiers. You have Costa Rica at the top, obviously, with good athleticism, excellent technical ability, and a great GK. At the bottom, you've got Nicaragua (more of a baseball nation) Guatemala (always a bridesmaid, never good enough to be a threat in the Hex) and El Salvador (see Guatemala, but fewer long-balls, and dirtier fouls).

Honduras and Panama are right smack dab in the middle. Neither good enough to challenge the top 3 of the US/Mexico/CR, but better than the obligatory Caribbean team (Jamaica or Trinidad and Tobago).

Atmosphere: From both, expect raucous crowds before (national holidays will be called, fans will make noise/set off fireworks all night outside of your hotel room) and during the game (you may deal with batteries, bottles of water/piss, etc).

Honduras Style of Play: Fast, physical, dirty. Their spine is made up of Maynor Figueroa, Boniek Garcia, Alberth Elis, and Romell Quioto. All play in the Texas heat, 3 of them for the Houston Dynamo, and they're the bell-weather for the team. In particular, Elis and Quioto will give the most trouble. Really good wingers, fast and physical. As an Earthquakes fan, they've torn my team up, and if you let Honduras absorb pressure and get either guy one into a 1-on-1 matchup on the outside, game over. They will get off a decent cross or shot, almost guaranteed. That is their main attacking threat, although Lozano is decent. On set-pieces, I think Honduras' main competence is on corners. Boniek can serve in good ones. Nobody that I've seen can really hit good dead balls otherwise.

They have two main weaknesses. First, they struggle to chase games. Pinto (who led Costa Rica in the 2014 World Cup, FYI) loves a 5-man backline, his teams have always been defense-first, and they've always struggled when going down a goal. This happened with Costa Rica, Columbia, Costa Rica (again), and Honduras is no exception. Second, they struggle away from home. When it's not 1:00 PM, 95 degrees/80 percent humidity, in San Pedro Sula, suddenly Honduras doesn't do so well, so if you can get a point away, you're pretty set at home.

Panama Style of Play: Technical, physical, playing through the central midfield. Panama likes to play through Godoy, Cooper, and Quintero. When Godoy is on, he's an extremely good destroyer who plays both sides of the ball, setting up and stopping attacks. Cooper and Quintero will be the main outlets for Panamanians under pressure. Cooper's good with the ball at his feet, and Quintero's basically a winger who can cut inside really well. Torres and Baloy are really big, bruising CB's, but they're often in card trouble. On set pieces, Gaby Torres serves a mean cross, and Blas Perez is an old target forward with a ton of goals and experience that can get on the end of some of those balls.

Panama's IMO an overall more balanced team. Their main weakness seems to be mental fortitude. They seem to choke during big games, and the Hondurans don't, which is why Honduras has WC appearances, and Panama does not. In the last cycle, we knocked them out in Estadio Rommell with a B-team, and of course last night they waltzed into a 4-0 buzz-saw (a scoreline that flattered Panama) instead of bunkering for a point.

If you thought the penalty was questionable last night, prepare yourselves for more of the same. The phrase "Solo en CONCACAF" gets thrown around a lot, because the CONCACAF refs let guys get away with murder. The Panamanians will ticky-tack foul you all game, but the Hondurans will just straight up kick the snot out of you, so if the Socceroos aren't mentally prepared for that, they will be in for a rough time.

I always like watching the Socceroos play, maybe because they seem so stylistically-similar to the US, and are also usually underdogs, so I hope you get through to the WC. Hope this helps, good luck in the next leg with Syria and beyond (unless you play us :b ).

welcome to the forum. i really like your style of analysis. how would you say the same thing about the australian team to say someone from honduras?

:D:D:D at the idea we had the rub of the green against thailand

we had 45 shots and hit the post how many times?

who cares.
It was a terrible decision and probably corrupt so I'm calling it out. In the low scoring sport of football single decisions matter a lot

Khribin, Masri and Mobayed are suspended, yes?

What evidence have you got of corruption?

I'm sorry but it's wholly unsubstantiated. The penalty was, imo, rough. But there was contact, was there not? Strictly speaking, it can be called an infringement. The referee is human. He can only call it for what he thinks it is. This wasn't, strictly speaking, a huge mistake but even if it had been; people make mistakes. I think it was rough (because I give people the benefit of the doubt) and it's ever so tough to be consistent about that sort of contact if you're quite that punitive.

But there's just no evidence of a conspiracy. And, even though football is a low scoring game, you get decisions go your way too (providing there's no conspiracy).

Look at the match against Thailand. There were far worse decisions made in that (from which Australia benefited) than anything in the match against Syria.

it wasnt a harsh pen it was a corrupt pen leckie literally jumps up and down.
corrupt pens happen in this sport. No conspiracy needed

welcome to the forum. i really like your style of analysis. how would you say the same thing about the australian team to say someone from honduras?

If there's no conspiracy, it's not corrupt.

For it to be corrupt, there needs to be an agenda or bias. That's the implication of corruption in this context.

Otherwise, at worst, it's a simple mistake on the ref's part (which is hardly a cardinal sin). In this case, it's not even a mistake.

It's simply rather a puritanical interpretation of the laws of the game.

In the course of jumping up and down, Mathew Leckie made contact. For that reason, it can be deemed an infringement. Nevertheless, it's a puritanical sort of ruling. But there's no evidence to substantiate any claim of corruption.

If referees always gave penalties for that, then there would be 10 penalties a game

 In this case, it's not even a mistake.

gunnerfan7, you are mentioning bad CONCACAF refs. I assume in an intercontinental playoff the refs would be non-CONCACAF and non-AFC.

Still no goals in Costa Rica Honduras game. 

Terrible refereeing has seen Ghana launch a protest. 

Croatia have sacked their coach. I'm glad the media isn't on a campaign to get Ange sacked. Things are pretty civil. 

Looks like a lot of regulars won't be in Russia. It'll be a refreshing tournament I think. 

Not really possible. Like I said, I've watched maybe 10 Socceroos matches in the last 4-5 years.

By comparison, I haven't missed a USMNT match since 2010. And since I also keep up with the YNT's, I see a lot of CONCACAF play at multiple levels. The U17/U20/U23 teams mirror the style of the senior teams, so watching the 2017 U20 CONCACAF Championship was like watching a younger, less-skilled version of USA-Honduras. Same terrible refs, by the way, Honduras made probably 7-8 studs-up tackles, injured 4 of our players (we ran out of subs for them, so tournament MVP Erik Palmer-Brown needed to play injured)... and earned a single yellow card for a tactical foul stopping a counterattack.

If I had to hazard a guess, you're setup a little bit like the US, in terms of strengths/weaknesses, but I'd have to watch a game or two more recently. The last time I saw Australia was at the Confed Cup, and I imagine that Asian WCQ is a different beast.

Not really possible. Like I said, I've watched maybe 10 Socceroos matches in the last 4-5 years.

By comparison, I haven't missed a USMNT match since 2010. And since I also keep up with the YNT's, I see a lot of CONCACAF play at multiple levels. The U17/U20/U23 teams mirror the style of the senior teams, so watching the 2017 U20 CONCACAF Championship was like watching a younger, less-skilled version of USA-Honduras. Same terrible refs, by the way, Honduras made probably 7-8 studs-up tackles, injured 4 of our players (we ran out of subs for them, so tournament MVP Erik Palmer-Brown needed to play injured)... and earned a single yellow card for a tactical foul stopping a counterattack.

If I had to hazard a guess, you're setup a little bit like the US, in terms of strengths/weaknesses, but I'd have to watch a game or two more recently. The last time I saw Australia was at the Confed Cup, and I imagine that Asian WCQ is a different beast.

gunnerfan7, you are mentioning bad CONCACAF refs. I assume in an intercontinental playoff the refs would be non-CONCACAF and non-AFC.

If there's no conspiracy, it's not corrupt.

For it to be corrupt, there needs to be an agenda or bias. That's the implication of corruption in this context.

Otherwise, at worst, it's a simple mistake on the ref's part (which is hardly a cardinal sin). In this case, it's not even a mistake.

It's simply rather a puritanical interpretation of the laws of the game.

In the course of jumping up and down, Mathew Leckie made contact. For that reason, it can be deemed an infringement. Nevertheless, it's a puritanical sort of ruling. But there's no evidence to substantiate any claim of corruption.

Corrupt is a big claim, it indicates that the referee made a decision to award the penalty for personal gain, perhaps money. I don't think that any poster on here can have evidence of the refereee being paid off to make that call so I don't think it is right to call the decision corrupt. As has been mentioned that against Thailand the referee made a massive error when Sainsbury chased back and tackled from behind. It was either a penalty or a red card depending whether it happened just inside or just outside the box, it was very close. This was a worse decision than the penalty call against Leckie, I cannot see any reason not to give a penalty or a red card, which was a massive error, was he corrupt as well?

On the non-Australian broadcast the Iranian referee was described as being the best in Asia, I do not know whether this is true, but it seems even he can make a massive mistake. He was taken in by the way Al Somah launched himself forward and threw his arms up, it definitely should not have happened, but on one viewing at full speed it is harder to judge. 

1-1 between Costa Rica and Honduras, leaving Panama and Honduras both with ten points, USA in third with 12.

Honduras are at home to Mexico, Panama host Costa Rica and USA are away at T&T on the last matchday. With a +5 GD USA will be safe with an away draw against the group minnows, while Panama basically has to do better against Costa Rica than Honduras do against Mexico to keep 4th spot.