CONCACAF: The State of Play

Mex­ico is reassert­ing itself as the dom­i­nant CONCACAF power. Wednesday’s 2–1 win over Canada in Chi­a­pas saw Mex­ico once again mix the old and the new as far as player selec­tion. With Blanco hav­ing now retired and Jared Bor­getti seem­ingly frozen out of Sven Goran Eriksson’s setup, vet­eran lead­er­ship will pass to Pavel Pardo and when he called in to Guille Franco. Hon­duras beat Jamaica at home and finally the Hon­durans who have for years been tal­ented enough to break through in a weak region appear ready to do so. Costa Rica con­tin­ues dom­i­nate a weak group win­ning at Haiti while Suri­name was beaten at home by resur­gent El Sal­vador. Memo to the USSF: in the hexag­o­nal, DO NOT PLAY EL SALVADOR OR HONDURAS AT RFK STADIUM. We recall the last time Hon­duras made the hexag­o­nal and the dis­as­ter­ous out­come of that match at RFK Sta­dium where Amer­i­can keeper Brad Friedel faced more heck­ling than the US has faced on the road thus far in the 2010 qual­i­fiers. How­ever, the US fin­ished 3rd in the Hexag­o­nal in 2001 ahead of Hon­duras and got the last qual­i­fy­ing spot from CONCACAF for the World Cup in 2002, so even los­ing home matches doesn’t nec­ceas­rily mean the US will not qual­ify for South Africa.

Any­how, here is my think­ing as to the rank­ings of CONCACAF’s top five national teams right now. Note Jamaica is unlikely to advance to the hexag­o­nal while Costa Rica is one point away from clinch­ing a spot in the next round. But the lack of depth on Costa Rica’s national team right now as well as the the grow­ing strength of CONCACAF prob­a­bly means the Ticos will have an uphill fight to make the World Cup for the third straight time.

1– Mex­ico

2– USA

3– Hon­duras

4– Jamaica

5– Costa Rica

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