Central America

Being a national team coach in a landscape where you rarely get to see your players must be difficult, and Costa Rica manager Gustavo Matosas has said to hell with it after less than one year in charge.

Matosas, the head coach, said that he gets bored with the amount of downtime he has compared to the amount of time he actually has to train and work with his players. He felt “unproductive” with so much down time, even though he spends loads of it studying film so that he is prepared to get the most out of the little time he has with his players.

Last night in Lima, Peru, Honduras upset Mexico after a penalty shootout to advance to the final of the 2019 Pan American Games. It’s a largely meaningless U-22 competition with understrength youth teams, so the Mexican Football Federation won’t be overly bothered by the result, but manager Jaime Lozano will be irked that his side couldn’t hold on to a 1-0 lead with just over 10 minutes remaining.

Especially since that 1-0 lead was built on one of the finest goals of the summer.

Mexico’s quest for its eighth Gold Cup — and first since 2015 — almost came to an abrupt end in Houston last night in front of over 70,000 at NRG Stadium. Raúl Jiménez had given El Tri a first half lead, only for Costa Rica to respond in the second half via a converted Bryan Ruiz penalty.

That would be the only scoring on the night, so the match would be decided on penalties. The shootout started as a nightmare for Mexico after Jiménez had his shot saved while Celso Borges converted for Costa Rica.

Down 2-0 with only 40 minutes remaining in last night’s CONCACAF Gold Cup quarterfinal, Haiti produced a barnstorming comeback to knockout Canada 3-2 while clinching a spot in the semifinals for the first time ever. 

The progress that Canada had evidently made under John Herdman had been one of the talking points of the group stage, and there were whispers of the Canucks upsetting the odds to claim their first continental title since 2000.

In the midst of Women’s World Cup nail-biters and Luis Suarez antics you probably missed it, but Monday night Bermuda quietly made history. With a convincing 2-0 victory over Nicaragua at the Gold Cup, Bermuda, an island nation of about 65,000 people, achieved its first victory ever in a major international competition.

Yasmani López, who captained Cuba in a 7-0 loss to Mexico on Saturday, has defected, Cuba coach Raul Mederos has confirmed. 

Cuba was routed by El Tri in their Gold Cup opener at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, and López did not travel with the team to Denver, where Cuba will play Martinique on Wednesday.

Watch a couple minutes of Concacaf U-17 Championship highlights and one thing is clear: There is a lot of talent in the youth ranks at some of North America and Central America. 

This isn’t that surprising to anyone who follows MLS these days. Two of the biggest stars in the field are Mexico’s Efrain Alvarez and the United States’ Gianluca Busio, two 16-year-olds who are already making waves in MLS. 

Montserrat — a tiny Caribbean island of less than 40 square miles named by Christopher Columbus, a territory of fewer than 5,000 inhabitants that was wrecked by a volcano 24 years ago, with a team ranked No. 200 in the world — is one win away from qualifying for the 2019 Gold Cup.

Legendary American wide man DaMarcus Beasley began his 20th year as a professional on Tuesday, and the 36-year-old started with an almighty bang.

After preaching the verb “compete” as one of the mantras of his new leadership, Gregg Berhalter began his reign as USMNT manager with a 3-0 victory over Panama on Sunday night. The first starting eleven of Berhalter’s tenure included five players making their international debuts, and three of them — Real Salt Lake’s Corey Baird, Chicago’s Djordje Mihailovic and San Jose’s Nick Lima — played huge roles in the opening two goals.

The third was created and finished by two more players making their international debuts — NYCFC's Jonathan Lewis and LAFC's Christian Ramirez.