Football World Cup 2014 / Honduras

This article covers the Honduran national soccer team at the 2014 World Cup . It was only the third time that Honduras took part in the finals and for the first time in a finals in South America . As in previous participations, Honduras was eliminated in the preliminary round.

qualification

Honduras qualified through the CONCACAF qualifiers .

The team only took part from the third qualification round and the team met Panama , Canada and Cuba . All home games were played in the Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano in San Pedro Sula . With three wins, two draws and one defeat from six games, the first place in the group was taken and the fourth qualifying round was reached. The decision on this was made on the last day of the match, with Honduras defeating direct rivals Canada 8-1, for whom a draw would have been enough to advance. In the 4th round, Honduras met Panama again in a group of six, as well as the USA , Costa Rica , Mexico and Jamaica . In addition to the home stadium, which was already used in the third round, the smaller Estadio Nacional de Tegucigalpa in Tegucigalpa was also used in the fourth round . In this round, Honduras managed to beat Mexico in the Aztec Stadium for the first time . But here, too, the decision about direct qualification was made on the last day of the match when the already qualified team from Costa Rica beat Mexico and Honduras draws against Jamaica at the same time. Mexico was also able to qualify via the intercontinental playoffs against New Zealand.

Group stage

3rd round

Pl.	team	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	Honduras	6th	3	2	1	012: 300	+9	11
2.	Panama	6th	3	2	1	006: 200	+4	11
3.	Canada	6th	3	1	2	006:100	−4	10
4th	Cuba	6th	0	1	5	001:100	−9	01

Game results

date	place	Home team	-	guest	Result	Goalscorers for Honduras
06/08/2012	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	Panama	0: 2 (0: 0)
06/12/2012	Toronto ( CAN )	Canada	-	Honduras	0-0
07.09.2012	Havana ( CUB )	Cuba	-	Honduras	0: 3 (0: 1)	Bengtson (32nd), Bernárdez (62nd), Chávez (90th + 3)
09/11/2012	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	Cuba	1: 0 (1: 0)	Bengtson (33.)
October 12, 2012	Panama City ( PAN )	Panama	-	Honduras	0-0
10/16/2012	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	Canada	8: 1 (4: 0)	Bengtson (7th, 17th, 83rd), Costly (29th, 49th, 88th), Martínez (33rd, 61st)

4th round

Pl.	team	Sp.	S.	U	N	Gates	Diff.	Points
1.	United States	10	7th	1	2	015: 800	+7	22nd
2.	Costa Rica	10	5	3	2	013: 700	+6	18th
3.	Honduras	10	4th	3	3	013:120	+1	15th
4th	Mexico	10	2	5	3	007: 900	−2	11
5.	Panama	10	1	5	4th	010:140	−4	08th
6th	Jamaica	10	0	5	5	005:130	−8	05

Game results

date	place	Home team	-	guest	Result	Goalscorers for Honduras
02/06/2013	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	United States	2: 1 (1: 1)	JC García (40th), Bengtson (79th)
03/22/2013	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	Mexico	2: 2 (0: 1)	Costly (77th), Bengtson (80th)
03/26/2013	Panama City ( PAN )	Panama	-	Honduras	2: 0 (1: 0)
06/07/2013	San Jose ( CRI )	Costa Rica	-	Honduras	1: 0 (1: 0)
06/11/2013	Tegucigalpa	Honduras	-	Jamaica	2: 0 (1: 0)	B. García (10.), Rojas (88.)
06/18/2013	Sandy ( USA )	United States	-	Honduras	1: 0 (0: 0)
06.09.2013	Mexico City ( MEX )	Mexico	-	Honduras	1: 2 (1: 0)	Bengtson (63rd), Costly (66th)
09/10/2013	Tegucigalpa	Honduras	-	Panama	2: 2 (1: 0)	Costly (28.), W. Palacios (62.)
10/11/2013	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	-	Costa Rica	1: 0 (0: 0)	Bengtson (64.)
October 15, 2013	Kingston ( JAM )	Jamaica	-	Honduras	2: 2 (1: 2)	Costly (2nd), Figueroa (32nd)

Luis Fernando Suárez used 36 players in the 16 games. Only Boniek García was used in all games. The top scorer was Jerry Bengtson with nine goals, making him the fifth top scorer of all CONCACAF teams and top scorer of the directly qualified CONCACAF teams. Nine other players contributed the remaining goals.

preparation

The following games took place before the World Cup:

• 0March 5th in San Pedro Sula against Venezuela : 2-1 (goalscorers for Honduras: Bengtson / 7th and Palacios / 60th)
• May 29 in Washington, DC against Turkey : 0-2
• 0June 1 in Houston against Israel : 2-4 (goalscorers for Honduras: Espinoza / 47th and Costly / 83rd)
• 0June 7 in Miami Gardens against England : 0-0

Finals

Squad

On May 5, 2014, the roster was named, which was later reduced to 23 players. 10 players were also in the squad of the last World Cup when Honduras were eliminated in the preliminary round.

No.	Surname	Club before the start of the World Cup 1	International matches 2	Länderspiel- gates 2	birthday	Games	Gates				World Cup participation	World Cup games (total)	World Cup goals (total)
goalkeeper
22nd	Donis Escober	CD Olimpia MC	020th	00	3rd February 1981	0	0	0	0	0	2010	0	0
01	Luis López	Real España	000	00	September 13, 1993	0	0	0	0	0
18th	Noel Valladares	CD Olimpia MC	121	00	May 3, 1977	3	0	0	0	0	2010	3	0
Defense
21st	Brayan Beckeles	CD Olimpia	024	01	November 28, 1985	3	0	0	0	0
05	Víctor Bernárdez	San Jose Earthquakes	077	03	May 24, 1982	3	0	1	0	0	2010	1	0
02	Osman Chavez	Qingdao Jonoon *	054	00	July 29, 1984	1	0	0	0	0	2010	3	0
03	Maynor Figueroa	Hull City	103	03	May 2nd 1983	3	0	0	0	0	2010	3	0
06th	Juan Carlos García	Wigan Athletic *	036	01	March 8, 1988	2	0	0	0	0
04th	Juan Pablo Montes	CD Motagua	011	01	October 26, 1985	0	0	0	0	0
midfield
23	Marvin Chavez	Colorado Rapids	041	04th	3rd November 1983	2	0	0	0	0
20th	Jorge Claros	CD Motagua	050	03	January 8, 1986	3	0	0	0	0
12	Edder Delgado	Real España	027	00	November 20, 1986	0	0	0	0	0
15th	Róger Espinoza	Wigan Athletic *	042	04th	October 25, 1986	3	0	0	0	0	2010	2	0
14th	Boniek García	Houston Dynamo	090	02	4th September 1984	3	0	1	0	0	2010	0	0
19th	Luis Garrido	CD Olimpia	020th	00	5th November 1990	2	0	1	0	0
07th	Emilio Izaguirre	Celtic Glasgow M	066	01	May 10, 1986	2	0	0	0	0	2010	2	0
10	Mario Martínez	Real España	037	03	July 30, 1989	1	0	0	0	0
17th	Andy Najar	RSC Anderlecht	018th	01	March 16, 1993	2	0	0	0	0
09	Jerry Palacios	LD Alajuelense	024	05	May 13, 1982	1	0	0	0	0	2010	2	0
08th	Wilson Palacios	Stoke City	094	05	July 29, 1984	2	0	0	1	0	2010	3	0
attack
11	Jerry Bengtson	New England Revolution	044	19th	April 8, 1987	3	0	1	0	0
13	Carlo Costly	Real España	069	31	July 18, 1982	3	1	0	0	0
16	Rony Martínez	CD Real Sociedad	009	01	August 16, 1988	0	0	0	0	0
Coaching staff
	Luis Fernando Suarez	Trainer			December 23, 1959	3					2006 3
	Miguel Falero	Assistant coach
	Marcelo Escalesse	Goalkeeping coach
	Carlos Gutierrez	Fitness trainer

¹ M - The club was champion of its country in the 2013/14 season, M3 - The club was champion of the third-highest league in its country in the 2013/14 season and was promoted to the second-highest division, * - The club plays in the second-highest league of its country Country.

²only those games and goals are given that were played or scored before the start of the World Cup ( source (as of May 16, 2014) , updated after the games against Turkey on May 29, 2014 , Israel on June 2, 2014 and England on June 7, 2014 )

³ With Ecuador

Group stage

Porto Alegre Curitiba Manaus Porto Feliz

Venues (blue) and district (red)

When the final round was drawn on December 6, 2013, Honduras was drawn into Group E with Switzerland (group head), France and Ecuador. With twelve games, Honduras is the second most frequent opponent of the CONCACAF teams for Ecuador after Mexico , but only in friendly games until the World Cup, of which two were won and three lost. The other seven ended in a draw. Against Switzerland, Honduras also played in the preliminary round of the last World Cup and Switzerland missed the round of 16 due to the goalless draw, which Honduras could no longer reach after the two defeats against the other group opponents. There were no other games against Switzerland and there was no game against France before the World Cup.

Before the World Cup, Honduras had not played in any of the three venues.

The team's quarters were the Hotel Transamérica in Porto Feliz .

rank	country	Gates	Points
1	France	8: 2	7th
2	Switzerland	7: 6	6th
3	Ecuador	3: 3	4th
4th	Honduras	1: 8	0

• Sun., June 15, 2014, 4:00 p.m. (9:00 p.m. CEST) in Porto Alegre France - Honduras 3: 0 (1: 0)
  
• Friday, June 20, 2014, 7:00 p.m. (12:00 p.m. CEST) in Curitiba Honduras - Ecuador 1: 2 (1: 1)
  
• Wed., June 25, 2014, 4:00 p.m. (10:00 p.m. CEST) in Manaus Honduras - Switzerland 0: 3 (0: 2)
  

Sports impact

In the FIFA World Ranking , Honduras fell 7 places from 33rd to 40th.

Resignations

Luis Fernando Suárez resigned from his position as national coach after the preliminary round. He was succeeded on July 30th by the Costa Rican Hernán Medford .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ fifa.com: "England duo leads the Honduran World Cup contingent" ( Memento of the original from May 6, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ fifa.com: team quarters
3. ↑ fifa.com: "World Champion Germany takes over the top position"

Web links

• All matches of the preliminary round at a glance
• All Honduras qualifying matches in the group stage