Match Review & Highlights: Chile 1-0 Honduras

June 16th, 2010 | by: Daryl | View Comments

Star striker Suazo was missing. For both teams. David Suazo of Honduras and Humberto Suazo of Chile both sat this out with injuries, and the absence of the two established strikers showed. For Chile more than Honduras though, since it was La Roja that had most of the ball and the majority of shots (20, believe it or not). Humberto Suazo was top scorer in South America for World Cup qualifying and would have had plenty of chances to open his World Cup proper account in this game.

Playing El Loco Bielsa’s highly anticipated (by the early liveblog crew anyway) 3-3-1-3 formation, Chile looked arguably the smoothest team of World Cup 2010 so far, exchanging passes easily and generally looking like a team that knew their plan of attack, and even when they didn’t, could rely on Alexis Sanchez to make a bust forwards. Honduras, on the other hand, struggled to get past the halfway line, and it’s a minor miracle they didn’t concede more.

Chile’s goal (still can’t believe I’m using the singular to be honest) came in the 34th minute through a mixture of good football and good luck:

A combination of passes ended with Jorge Valdivia playing right back Mauricio Isla down the right, with to cross low. Honduran defender Sergio Mendoza beat Chile’s Jean Beausejour to the ball, but could only deflect it off of Beausejour and into the goal. Beausejour gets the credit, but was careful not to over-celebrate Mendoza’s misfortune.

Humberto Suazo was dressed for this game, but not used. If he’s fit and in the mix against Switzerland or Spain, then I’m thinking Chile could give both of those teams a game, and look good while doing it.

Man of the Match: Chile coach Marcelo Bielsa, for sending his team out to play proper passing football.