Gold Cup: Day One

A brief round-up and some thoughts on each of today's games:

Canada 2, Costa Rica 1: What an absolutely deserved scoreline for the Canadians. Julian De Guzman scored a pair very nice goals as Canada rallied from a brief 1-0 deficit to beat favored Costa Rica. Canada played the better match from the start and created more scoring chances than the Ticos. Dwayne De Rosario hit the bar and several players grazed the net on other attempts. Still, it was Costa Rica who jumped out to the lead. Walter Centeno curled in a 20-yarder to open the scoring. When they scored, the Canadians could have folded. After all, many teams have played well, gone down and never recovered. But Canada dug deep and De Guzman leveled terms a minute later. But his game-winner was a thing of beauty. De Guzman danced at the top of the penalty area, trying to create space. He chipped a shot into the upper corner from outside the box.

Haiti 1, Guadeloupe 1: Of the snippets of this match that I saw, the teams looked decent. Of course, there were quite a few wild shots sent into the stratosphere but nevermind that. Haiti went up right before the break on a disputed penalty kick. I think it could have gone either way. The Haitian attacker was sort of off-balance when he tried to cut back but the Guadeloupe defender did make contact. Mones Cherry buried the spot kick and Haiti jumped out to the lead. But Guadeloupe did well to react in the second half and scored on a nice goal. Miguel Comminges crossed the ball into the six-yard box and Cedrick Fiston tapped it into an empty net for the equalizer.