Gold Cup: Honduras advances to semifinals

As we anticipated in a previous post, Honduras defeated Canada in the 1st match of the quarterfinals in Concacaf Gold Cup. The result was 1-0, so we not only anticipated that Honduras would win, but we also anticipated that the result was going to be 1-0.

Well, sometimes I think I'm able to see the future, but that's not necessarily the case on this result.

I figured that Honduras was the favorite team to win this game, and a result 1-0 was a very probable result for a game like this, it was not too hard to guess.

The game was very complicated for both teams, Honduras scored in the 1st half with a penalty kick, which I´m not sure it was really a foul in the play that generated that penalty kick. The play was very confusing.

Canada pushed a lot in the 2nd half to score, but they couldn´t be able to score. The last 5 minutes were very dramatic, Canada was very close to score but Honduras was able to keep the victory.

With this victory, Honduras advanced to the semifinals next week, and they will be playing against the winner of the other game later today between USA and Panama.

Chances are that Honduras will play against USA, I think USA will beat Panama in this other game. USA is the strongest team in the competition, and is the local team as well.

In soccer anything can happen. If Panama gets the victory against USA, it would be a big surprise, but it´s always a possibility. I don´t think Panama will win, but let´s wait to see what happens.

Good for Honduras, they will play the semifinal in Chicago's Soldier Field next week, on Thursday July 23rd. The most probable rival of Honduras will be USA.

Gold Cup: What time is the game USA vs Panama?

We all know that tomorrow, saturday July 18th, we will have two games of the quarterfinals round in the Concacaf Soccer Gold Cup. And the other 2 games will be played on Sunday, July 19th.

The schedule for these quarterfinal matches is the following:

Saturday July 18th: two games in Philadelphia
(Lincoln Financial Field)

Honduras vs Canada
5pm, EDT

USA vs Panama
8pm, EDT

Sunday July 19th: two games in Dallas
(New Cowboys Stadium)

Guadeloupe vs Costa Rica
4pm, EDT

Mexico vs Haiti
7pm, EDT

We're ready then, let´s watch these games and enjoy Concacaf soccer, let the best teams win.

Gold Cup: ready for the quarterfinals

We are ready for the start of the quarterfinal matches in the Concacaf Soccer Gold Cup. Tomorrow in Philadelphia we will have two very interesting games at Lincoln Financial Field.

The first game is Honduras vs Canada, the 2nd game is USA vs Panama.

Honduras and Canada are going to play the first game of this 2nd round in the Gold Cup. Canada won Group A with 7 points, and Honduras had the 2nd place in Group B with 6 points.

Both teams are very strong teams, this game will be very complicated. I don´t think we will have many goals, it could be a 1-0 game for all we know. We are not anticipating a lot of goals, but we also know that in a soccer game anything could happen.

There is not a clear favorite on this match, I guess we will have to wait until tomorrow for the game in order to know what will happen. Anyway, my forecast is Honduras will win, it´s just a hunch that I have.

In the other game, USA vs Panama, I think we all have a clear winner, and I guess most people think USA will beat Panama. I guess most people are right, USA will probably beat Panama.

But let´s not wait an easy rival on Panama, it´s going to be very complicated for USA, it won´t be that easy.

Panama is a very strong team, they have a pretty good defense, and USA will have to give their best effort in order to advance to the semifinals.

For the soccer fans in Philadelphia, it will be a very interesting day. It´s not every day that US team plays in that city, so this will be a very good opportunity for the fans to go and witness live this game.

Ibrahimovic is leaving Inter Milan?

The international swedish soccer player Zlatan Ibrahimovic, is probably on his way out of Inter Milan. There are some negotiations between Inter Milan and Barcelona FC in order to move Ibrahimovic to Spain.

This transfer is related also to a possible exchange of Samuel Eto'o, rumors say that Eto's would move from Barcelona to Inter Milan replacing Ibrahimovic.

We all know that Samuel Eto'o is looking for a new team from several months ago, it seems he is not happy anymore with Barcelona FC. He has one more year on his current contract with Barcelona, but he is willing to leave as soon as possible.

On the other hand, Ibrahimovic also has said a few times that he would like to move someday either to England or Spain. However, he also has said that he is happy with his current situation in Italy.

The amount for the transfer of Ibrahimovic to Barcelona would be about 40 million Euros.

I guess Barcelona is trying to get a few additional players to his team in order to face Real Madrid with enough strength. We all know Real Madrid has invested giant amounts of money in the last few weeks with the contracts of Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka, and Barcelona is trying to do something similar.

Let´s wait the next few days to see what happens with this Ibrahimovic move to Barcelona, it would be very interesting.

Welcome again to this blog

Well, it has been a long time that I have not written any posts on this blog. A lot of things happened during the last three years with soccer all over the world, and especially a lot of things have ocurred with Ronaldinho.

About 3-4 years ago, Ronaldinho used to be the best soccer player in the world, that was accepted by almost every soccer fan in the world back then.

But now, things have changed dramatically. Ronaldinho is not the best player in the world anymore. He is not playing with Barcelona FC anymore, he is now playing in Italy with AC Milan, and he is still to show his category.

He's had some good times and some good games with AC Milan, but not what everybody expected when he joined the team.

I´m not sure Ronaldinho will get to be the best soccer player ever again, perhaps his time has gone by to a point of no return. He´s still a good player, but nothing compared to the level he used to have.

I guess there is not much to tell about Ronaldinho these days. However, this blog is also about soccer in general, I guess I will have to write my new posts with topics related to soccer in general rather than posts related to Ronaldinho.

If I know something new about Ronaldinho, I will comment about it for sure. But there is not much to say right now, so let´s focus in soccer, where we have a lot of stuff to talk about.