Mexico Favored in Qualifying for Cup
With the final round of the CONCACAF qualifying matches for the 1994 World Cup approaching, Mexico has emerged as the favorite to win its group competition and advance to the tournament.
The third and final CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Football) round features Mexico, Canada, Honduras and El Salvador, who will play a round-robin, home-and-home format that starts April 4 and runs until May 9.
The winner will move automatically to the ’94 Cup that will be hosted by the United States and the runner-up still has another chance to qualify, although it would not be easy. After the final CONCACAF round, the runner-up must defeat the Oceania group champion and then the second-place finisher in South America Group A to advance.
Mexico, which has not played in the World Cup since 1986, tied Honduras with nine points in the CONCACAF Group A final standings in the second round. However, the Mexicans technically won the group by beating Honduras, 2-0, and tying, 1-1, in their two head-to-head matches.
El Salvador won Group B with nine points and Canada was second with seven points. Bermuda handed the Salvadorans their only loss in six matches, a 1-0 upset at San Salvador in October. Canada was not overly impressive, losing to El Salvador, 3-2, and tying three of its matches.
The Mexicans played good soccer in the second CONCACAF round (they had a bye in the first round) under Coach Cesar Luis Menotti, who guided Argentina to the 1978 World Cup title. But Menotti quit in mid-December over philosophical differences with the directors of the Mexican Football Federation and was replaced by Miguel Mejia Baron, the Monterrey club coach.
Whether Mejia Baron can take the Mexicans to equal success remains to be seen, but Mexico is still expected to win the group.
Among the Mexican victories in the second round was an 11-0 thrashing of St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Dec. 6 in Mexico City, which set a record for the largest margin of victory in a CONCACAF World Cup qualifying match. Trinidad and Tobago held the previous record with an 11-1 victory over Antigua in a qualifying match for the 1974 World Cup.
The CONCACAF final round will showcase outstanding scorers in Mexico’s Francisco Uribe, who with Shaun Goater of Bermuda led the second round with seven goals, as well as El Salvador’s Jorge Gonzalez (five goals) and Honduras’ Juan Flores (four goals).
The United States, also a member of CONCACAF, qualified automatically for the ’94 Cup as host. The Rose Bowl in Pasadena will be one of the primary sites and will host the final game.
SPORTS NOTES
Marcelo Balboa, a sweeper on the U.S. national team and on the American Professional Soccer League champion Colorado Foxes, was named the 1992 Player of the Year by the U.S. Soccer Federation. Balboa, a prolific scorer at Cerritos High School several years ago, had surgery in November to remove bone spurs from his right ankle. Balboa, who is of Argentine descent, and Uruguayan-born Fernando Clavijo are the two Latinos on the pre-World Cup squad who were invited to the U.S. national team’s training camp in Mission Viejo this month. Two others, Uruguayan-born Tab Ramos and El Salvadoran-born Hugo Perez will remain with their European club teams and join the U.S. national squad for important matches. Ramos plays with Real Betis in Spain and Perez with Ittihad in Saudi Arabia. . . . The U.S. national team will play Romania on Feb. 6 at UC Santa Barbara at 7 p.m. . . . Bob Alejo, 35, a strength and conditioning coach at UCLA for the past nine years, was recently named the strength coach for the U.S. national soccer team. Alejo, whose father is Mexican, is a Northridge resident. . . . Mexican soccer star Hugo Sanchez returned to Southern California with a bang, leading Club America of Mexico to a 1-0 victory over Costa Rica’s Club Alajuela in the finals of the CONCACAF club championships Jan. 5 at Santa Ana Stadium Sanchez scored the goal in the second half.
Fernando Valenzuela, the former Dodger ace, got off to a good start in the Mexican winter league. Valenzuela had three complete games by early January and was 7-4 for the Navojoa Mayos. The left-hander pitched in the major leagues with the Dodgers and Angels before going to play in Mexico last year. . . . Two former Latino stars in the major leagues came close but missed induction into the baseball Hall of Fame when the 1993 voting was announced earlier this month. Puerto Rican-born Orlando Cepeda and Cuban-born Tony Perez, both former first basemen, fell short of the required 318 votes needed (75%) from the Baseball Writers of America. Cepeda finished third in the voting with 252 and Perez had 233. Both hit 379 career homers. . . .Lee Trevino, the great Mexican-American golfer, has been named the 1992 PGA Tours’ senior Player of the Year.
