Honduras vs Chile – World Cup 2010 

Honduras: the national team of Honduras qualified for the second time in his history to the FIFA World Cup after a dramatic route in the qualifiers, since they finished their last match without knowing what future was reserved to them. The hondurans supporters could only celebrate their place here when the USA, playing thousand of quilometers away, tied their match against Costa Rica in the very last minute of injury time. Strong in all the positions, Reinaldo Rueda’s team will be more than just one secondary team in the south-african competition.

Honduras worked hard since the first phase of the qualifiers, when they humbly faced Porto Rico’s national team, eliminated by 6-2 when aggregating the scores. After, even in the most complicated group of the semifinal phase, the hondurans managed to advance to the final hexagonal in front of Mexico, eliminating Jamaica and Canada.

The last stage, however, couldn’t have started worse to Reinaldo Rueda’s players. A away defeat to archrival Costa Rica by 2-0 was a premonition of an epic battle between the two nations, that would not be decided until the last sigh.

A draw by one goal with Trinidad and Tobago and a home win by 3-1 against Mexico guaranteed the recovery of the hondurans, even with an away defeat to the USA by 2-1.

Wins against El Salvador (1-0), Costa Rica (4-0) and Trinidad and Tobago (4-1) were followed by a setback in Mexico by 1-0, score that didn’t stop Honduras of reaching penultimate round with everything ready to qualify at home against north-americans. However, a defeat in San Pedro Sula by 3-2 forced the team to win the last game in El Salvador and still having to wait for a good result in the match of USA vs. Costa Rica. Surpassed the obstacle in San Salvador by 1-0, the Honduras team waited with anguish the dramatical goal that of USA in the last minute to tie the match, which guaranteed the place in the South Africa FIFA World Cup 2010.

Chile: chilean football crosses a new administrative phase that started to give its fruits with the historical return to the FIFA World Cup after a 12 years absence.

Since that Marcelo Rooms and Iván Zamorano had left its marks in France 1998, Chile saw the frustrating attempts to come back to the elite, but that period seems to have been stopped backwards. The current group, very well managed by the Argentine Marcelo Bielsa, counts with human material to repeat the same feat that in 1998 surprised the Chileans and the rest of the world.

Viewing the easy way how Chile classified, the expectations in the country are enormous. Mainly after qualifiers for Korea/Japan 2002 and Germany 2006, in which the Chileans finished in penultimate and later in seventh place. The times had changed and, already without the famous attacking duo, the Chilean team has a new face and start dreaming with a highlighted performance.

The Chilean national team assured a vacant in South Africa 2010 thanks to the second place in the qualifiers, only one point behind Brazil. The campaign of Bielsa’s group, that had the lowest average of age of the competition, was the best in the history of the country since that the current system of qualification was adopted in the continent. The ticket was stamped with a round remaining, on the 10th of October of 2009, when the Chileans had won Colombia by 4-2 and one more time they had shown its force in away matches, condition where they had gathered 16 of its 33 points.

Another clear test of the good moment that crosses Marcelo Bielsa’s team is the personality to go for the attack at home and in away matches. Chile had the biggest number of goals in the qualifiers (32), won the biggest number of games (ten) and had the top scorer of the competition, Humberto Suazo, with ten goals.

In my opinion this game will not have great quality of football. The Chilean team will be significantly attacking their opponents, and Honduras will play more in counter attack and, in a certain way, it will wait for some errors of the opposite team and it will attack with less quality of game. My tip for this game is the victory of Chile!