BALTIMORE—The U.S. men’s national team paid a visit to Charm City on Sunday, crushing El Salvador 5-1 in the Gold Cup quarterfinals and setting up a semi-final matchup with Honduras on Wednesday in Dallas.
M&T Bank Stadium, home of the Baltimore Ravens, received a soccer makeover. Natural grass was laid over the venue’s synthetic playing surface, and the stadium’s largely purple color scheme was drowned out by a sea of blue-and-white-clad Salvadorans. The overwhelmingly pro-Salvadoran crowd of 70,540 was no surprise—the U.S. team has long played games on home soil that feel more like road matches. The Washington metropolitan area is home to over 150,000 people of Salvadoran descent, making it the sixth-largest concentration of Salvadorans in the world, including cities in El Salvador. La Selecta, as the Salvadoran national team is affectionately known, plays a yearly friendly at RFK Stadium, which has been dubbed “Cuscatán North,” a nod to the stadium they play their home matches in.
In this particular instance, however, the U.S. squad seemed to feed off the energy, while their opponents wilted under the pressure.
“In many cases, this level of support can make a game, but it’s also a double-edged sword,” El Salvador head coach Augustin Castillo said after the match. “Many of our youngers players felt the pressure of playing in front of so many people.”
It was clear the Americans were ahead from the opening whistle, and it took them just over 20 minutes to fire the game’s opening salvo, finding the back of the net off of a brilliantly executed set piece. Midfielder Jose Torres played a short corner to Landon Donovan, who passed back to Michael Parkhurst and made a run run behind the Salvadoran defense, meeting a perfectly weighted chip back from Parkhurst. Donovan took the ball down on his chest near the end line and cut a cross back into the middle, through the legs of El Salvador defender Jose Henriquez and right to Clarence Goodson, who smashed a shot into the open net from six yards out.
Donovan was the catalyst for the second goal, too, taking a pass on the left side and turning toward goal at speed. He found Chris Wondolowski at the top of the area, from where Wondo squared the ball to Joe Corona. Corona put his defender on the ground with a sharp fake and then slid the ball into the lower left corner of the net from 16 yards out for his second goal of the tournament.
El Salvador pulled one back in the 39th minute as Rodolfo Zelaya—who had a sensational tournament and likely burned his name into the mind of many Major League Soccer scouts in attendance—baited Demarcus Beasley into committing a needless foul at the top of the area, drawing a penalty kick. Zelaya himself also converted the penalty, drawing El Salvador back within a goal.
The U.S. put the game away in the second half, with Donovan orchestrating what was perhaps the team’s most dominant half of soccer to date under head coach Jurgen Klinsmann. Eddie Johnson entered the match as a substitute in the 59th minute, and scored in just 14 seconds, nodding home a cross from Donovan to make it 3-1. Donovan handled handle the fourth goal himself, breaking away and slotting the ball into an open goal. The final tally came in the 84th minute, with Mix Diskerud heading home another Donovan cross.
Donovan, the 31-year-old veteran, played a part in all 5 U.S. goals, assisting on three and setting up another in addition to the one he scored. “My experience in these games is [the fans] show up with an El Salvador jersey on, and once we score a few goals, they rip it off and have a USA jersey on,” he said after the match. “The crowd got more and more pro-American as we scored goals.”
The victory stretches the U.S. national team’s winning streak to an all-time record of nine games. The U.S. has now advanced to the semifinals of the Gold Cup—the biennial regional championship of the Caribbean and North and Central America—seven consecutive times. They’ll take on a Honduran squad that rode a goal from former D.C. United phenom winger Andy Najar to a victory over Costa Rica in the evening match of Sunday’s doubleheader.
Game Notes: D.C. United would seem to be a good fit for Zelaya, the Salvadoran striker who scored his team’s lone goal. United are certainly in need of some creativity up top, and he could well be a great draw for a Salvadoran community in the District that helped fill RFK in the club’s early days. Zelaya was asked after the match by Goal.com whether he’s interested in playing for an MLS team, and it certainly seems as though he is. United scout Kurt Morsink, who’s been looking in Central and South America for talent, was in attendance on Sunday …. Donovan tried on some sunglasses in the second half …. After Najar’s goal in the Honduras match, the United alumnus product tucked the ball under his jersey, a celebration traditionally done when the player’s significant other is expecting. “I dedicated the goal to my wife because a second baby is on its way, a boy,” Najar said after the match. “It’s a beautiful moment and thankfully the coach counted on me today. Little by little, he’s brought me along and given me opportunities and today I was right there (to help the team).”
