GC Obit: Guatemala

Guatemala is out of the Gold Cup. The chapines' final performance was awful as Guatemala lost 3-0 to Canada. But overall Guatemala showed that they have the makings of something decent.

The main reason to have hope is Hernan Dario "Bolillo" Gomez who knows how to manage international teams at the highest level. In 1997, Gomez guided his native Colombia to the 1998 World Cup finals. But Gomez had a far more challenging task ahead of him when he took over as Ecuador boss in 1999. Ecuador had virtually no soccer history at the time but Gomez achieved what had never been done before as Ecuador qualified for its first-ever World Cup.

Like in 98, Gomez's team did not survive the first round in 2002. But in Japan, Ecuador did well nonetheless. The team was outclassed in an opening 2-0 loss to Italy. Against Mexico, Agustin Delgado scored early but Mexico came back and won 2-1. Ecuador had no chance of advancing out of the first round by the team they lined up against Croatia but Ecuador didn't just roll over. They beat Croatia 1-0; had Croatia won, they would have advanced.

Gomez left Ecuador after the 2004 Copa America but he didn't leave the cupboard bare. Ecuador reached the second round of the 2006 World Cup before losing to England 1-0.

Gomez may be one of the top coaches in CONCACAF. He's led two teams to the World Cup finals and knows what that involves and how to prepare a team for qualifying.

One critique Gomez had of his team after Guatemala's 1-0 loss to the U.S. was the team's fitness level. That may have factored into the loss to Canada as perhaps four games in a 10-day span was perhaps too much to overcome.

Fitness is not the only aspect that needs improvement. Guatemala needs more of its players on foreign leagues. Carlos Ruiz (FC Dallas) and Pablo Melgar (Antofagasta, Chile) are the only two players from its Gold Cup roster that play outside of the country. It's unclear how much influence Gomez has in sending players abroad; perhaps that's something the federation has to pursue but regardless that is vital to their future success.

Still, with one year remaining until the start of World Cup 2010 qualifying, Guatemala is in as good a position as they could hope to be.