American players fell to the field at the final whistle. Another missed Olympics football tournament for the U.S. men.<\/p>\n
Juan Carlos Obreg\u00f3n scored in the fourth minute of first-half stoppage time, goalkeeper David Ochoa committed a blunder that gifted Luis Palma a goal two minutes into the second half and Honduras beat the United States 2-1 on Sunday in an Olympic qualification game at Guadalajara, Mexico.<\/p>\n
U.S. captain Jackson Yueill pulled a goal back with a curling 23-yard shot in the 52nd minute, but the Americans mis-fired on several good chances to equalize.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, we\u2019re devastated, absolutely devastated,\u201d U.S. coach Jason Kreis said. \u201cIn our locker room, the guys are like it\u2019s a tragedy \u2014 a tragedy.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
U.S. men had trouble creating chances in the first half, and the Americans missed their third straight Olympics.<\/p>\n
"They were very well man-oriented to stop players, which didn\u2019t give us a lot of time to kind of break them down," Yeuill said.<\/p>\n
The American Olympic skid is part of a trend that includes the senior national team missing the 2018 World Cup.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe lose an opportunity to play in an international tournament with more pressure, where these players have to be in these environments and continue to improve with that pressure,\u201d Kreis said.<\/p>\n
Olympic men's football is limited to players both Jan. 1, 1997, and later, and clubs don't have to release players.<\/p>\n
In contrast, the women's tournament is open to senior national teams. The U.S. has won three of the last four football gold medals and is favored to win again this summer.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Still, there were chances. Jonathan Lewis\u2019 63rd-minute header was headed off the goal line by Wesley Degas, and Yueill\u2019s free kick in the 69th was batted away by goalkeeper Alex Barrios. Lewis had an open 4-yard shot off Tanner Tessman\u2019s pass in the 83rd minute but allowed the ball to bounce off a boot. Johnny Cardoso mis-hit an open header in second-half stoppage time.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know that if I\u2019ve ever seen a game where we\u2019ve had players mis-control the ball so much by going under people\u2019s feet, passing out of bounds,\u201d Kreis said. \u201cThese are things that are just really \u2014 you just really kind of scratch your head, you think of what\u2019s going on here? But I also have been around the game enough in our country at a pro level to tell you this is what you see in preseasons and at the beginning of MLS seasons it\u2019s typical.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kreis had seen similar from his team during the group stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the first half looked a lot like the Dominican Republic first half,\u201d Kreis said. \u201cWe have players that aren\u2019t moving. We have people on the ball that aren\u2019t committing defenders to make decisions, to open up spaces. We have guys that look like they\u2019re just don\u2019t really want the ball, and so it just kind of goes back to a mostly mentality for me. \u201d<\/p>\n
Honduras advanced to its fourth straight Olympics this summer in Japan after finishing fourth in 2016. Mexico, the 2012 gold medal winner, earned the other berth from North and Central America and the Caribbean by defeating Canada 2-0 in the second game of the doubleheader.<\/p>\n
https:\/\/twitter.com\/ESPNFC\/status\/1376325954759495688<\/a><\/p>\n CONCACAF qualifiers join Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Egypt, France, Germany, Ivory Coast, Japan, New Zealand, Romania, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea and Spain in the draw, which will be held in Zurich on April 21. The tournament will be played from July 21 to Aug. 7 in Tokyo, Kashima, Miyagi, Saitama, Sapporo and Yokohama.<\/p>\n On a 90-degree afternoon with kickoff at 4 p.m. at 5,100 feet, Honduras went ahead after a clearance by Justen Glad that followed a free kick. The U.S. defense began to move upfield as Edwin Maldonado recovered the ball and quickly made a long diagonal pass. Denil Maldonado sprinted past defenders and sent the ball back across the goalmouth with a diving header and the New York City-born Obreg\u00f3n used his left leg to redirect the ball past Ochoa.<\/p>\n On the second goal, Ochoa received Aaron Herrera's back-pass just outside the 6-yard box, hesitated and tried to chip the ball upfield. The ball ricocheted off Palma\u2019s left leg and into the American goal \u2014 an error by Ochoa that brought back memories of Sean Johnson's misplay that knocked out the U.S. in qualifying for 2012.<\/p>\n Among the top U.S. players not in qualifying were Christian Pulisic, Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams, Gio Reyna, Josh Sargent, Sergi\u00f1o Dest, Chris Richards and Antonee Robinson.<\/p>\n Atlanta refused to release defenders George Bello and Miles Robinson, and forward Brooks Lennon.<\/p>\n \u201cThe only solution I would say there is that if you can get the European players that are midseason,\u201d Kreis said, \u201cthen perhaps you\u2019re in better shape, but we all know the difficulties of that, as well.\u201d<\/p>\n Notes: Mexico's Uriel Antuna scored his third goal of the tournament in the 57th minute after Carlos Rodr\u00edguez intercepted a pass from goalkeeper James Pantemis. Johan V\u00e1squez added a goal in the 65th when his header rebounded off a post and then the chest of Canada\u2019s Callum Montgomery.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" American players fell to the field at the final whistle. Another missed Olympics football tournament for the U.S. men. Juan Carlos Obreg\u00f3n scored in the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51120"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51120"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51120\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51122,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51120\/revisions\/51122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}