Emilio Izaguirre continued his impressive end of season form as he created two goals for Honduras in their 3-0 win over El Salvador in Washington last night.
Playing in left midfield the 2011 Scottish Player of the Year set up the second and third goals after the break to give Honduras the perfect boost ahead of Friday’s World Cup opener at home to Panama on Friday before facing Canada in Toronto on June 12.
Cuba are the other side in Group C with the top two teams in the group advancing to the final qualifying group consisting of the winners and runners up from the two other qualifying groups.
Mexico and the USA are strong favourites to take the top two qualifying places for Brazil with the third placed team in the final qualifying group also qualifying automatically with the fourth placed country going into a play-off with an Oceanic nation.
A sell-out crowd of 41,780 watched Honduras field close to their strongest team against El Salvador after the disappointment of losing 1-0 to New Zealand in Dallas.
After the match Honduras coach Luis Fernando Suarez said: “The game was an ideal build-up for the qualifier against Panama.
“We played well as a team, concentrated hard and showed the discipline that is needed, I was pleased by their attitude.
“Emilio is an important player for us and showed his ability in an attacking sense, I’m looking forward to seeing him playing like that in our qualifiers”.
Michael McGlinchey and Chris Killen were in the New Zealand side that opened their World Cup campaign with a 1-0 win over Fiji in the Solomon Islands.
In South America Argentina kicked off their bid to win the World Cup in Brazil with a 4-0 win over Ecuador with Lionel Messi scoring the third goal, Alex Sabello’s side are sitting at the top of the South American qualifying group with 10 points from 5 matches.
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It’s great to see Izi back at his best. HH.