FOOTBALL Guatemala falls
About the article
This is a digitised version of an article from The Cayman Compass's print archive. Occasionally, the digitisation process introduces transcription errors, or other problems.
See the article in its original context from November 1996.
Brought to you by
The victory left Costa Rica tied atop CONCACAF semifinal Group 1 with the United States with perfect 2-0-0 records and all but doomed Guatemala's chances of advancing.
Guatemala has only one point from three matches and sunk to the bottom of the four-team group behind Trinidad (also 0-1-2). Only the top two from each of CONCACAF's three semifinal groups advance.
Because of the tragedy that killed 84 people before Guatemala's scheduled qualifier with Costa Rica on Oct. 16, Guatemala must play all of its home matches in Los Angeles or Honduras. Costa Rica and Guatemala will face off again next Sunday in Los Angeles in the rescheduled Oct. 16 match.
Because of Guatemala tragedy, a heavy police presence presided over the Ricardo Saprissa Stadium and its less than capacity crowd of 20,000, which observed a moment of silence for the victims.
Javier Delgado gave Costa Rica the lead off the corner from Medford, whose 74th-minute goal along with Ronald Gomez's three minutes later sealed Guatemala's chances. Costa Rica's offense came alive after a desultory first half. Two saves by goalkeeper Erick Lonnis kept Costa Rica in the match despite Guatemala's domination from the outset.
Costa Rica had to play the final three minutes with only 10 men after Honduran referee Argelio Sabillon sent off captain Ronald Gonzalez with his second yellow card.
