International Week

International week, and El Salvador had two home friendlies, both of which I missed. The squad put together by Mexican coach Carlos De Los Cobos had more than one eye on the Olympic qualification to come, and so were mostly comprised of the under-23 squad, with a few senior players.

El Salvador v Costa Rica
In front of very few fans they faced a strongish Costa Rica team on Saturday night. This is a good test for the lads, as Costa Rica are traditionally stronger then them. This game, however, was no one-sided affair, and it was probably the slightly more mature professionalism that saw Costa Rica go two up.

A very heartening come back saw the “blue and white” of El Salvador come back to get two each, they also had a couple of goals disallowed, both probably offside. As for the San Salvador boys involved, Dennis Alas came on for a few minutes before receiving a red card for complaining about the second disallowed goal, which was scored from a free kick from his club and country team-mate Eliseo Quintanilla. Hs bustling and intelligent performance in this game saw him awarded man of the match. Ronald Cerritos also played and had a decent game up front.

Despite this being an International date San Salvador played, without those players, and lost again 2-1. This is now eight games without a win, and five loses on the spin … I am going Sunday for a tricky home fixture against Vista Hermosa, still playing well despite their narrow 1-0 home loss to leaders Aguila.

El Salvador v Trinidad & Tobago
Wednesday night the “socawarriors” (is that right?) of Trinidad & Tobago came over. They brought a good team, although the squad had only players who currently work in the local league.

Following a lambasting of the apathetic turn out on Saturday a much larger crowd came, hoping to see another fighting performance; they were not disappointed, and ended the game by sending the lads off to rapturous applause. The team from Jack Warner’s powerbase played well first half, and El Salvador had not quite found their feet, but in the second half they came into it more, and could have won it. However an interesting and hard fought nil all draw left most satisfied. As for the San Salvador representatives, Alas (17) played a half, but did not really impose himself, Ronald Cerritos (11) had a good second half and hit the post, and once again Quintanilla (10) was man of the match, running the show, always the route the team went through:- his is the ball which Cerritos headed onto the post. These two games, I think, will lead De Los Cobros to continue with his favoured 5-3-2.

Alianza’s strike finished once the players finally got paid, but the last I heard was that San Salvador had not paid their players either. There seems to be a belief here that “a hungry dog fights harder”, but the president of San Salvador has denied that that is his method.

Other News
Russia got a good and deserved victory against an England devoid of ideas, and tactically out-thought. And no amount of moaning about the ref can hide that. Time to give Marcello Lippi a call and offer him the Earth.

Scotland like to make things tricky for themselves, and after brushing Ukraine aside lost 2-0 away at Georgia, but a regulation home win against Italy will see them home.

Venezuela won away at Quito, of all places, with a remarkable free kick, and to get their world cup campaign off to a terrible start Ecuador then got slaughtered in Rio.