World Cup Qualifications. CONCACAF

Central and North America – CONCACAF. Group 11. Two teams qualified and normally one of them was indisputable certainty – Mexico – but… scandals played its role in the complicated qualifications. In the second round of the qualifications Mexico was found guilty of infringement of age rules and disqualified. Since there are no age rules in national team competitions, it must have been in some junior-team tournament. Rumors of cheating and manipulating birth certificates were going around for years, but mostly African countries were suspected of such things. In any case, practically no country was suspended so far – Mexico was the first. Without the heavy favorite… anything was possible in the CONCACAF qualification. And the wild possibilities depended on events outside the playing field.
The political situation in El Salvador led to messy final stage: the last 2 games between Guatemala and El Salvador were annulled by FIFA. Before that the match between El Salvador and Costa Rica, played in San Salvador, was abandoned. When the game was interrupted, Costa Rica was leading 4-2 and later FIFA awarded the same result to Costa Rica. Thus, the final stage of CONCACAF qualifications ended in this order:
1.COSTA RICA 8 5 1 2 10- 6 11
The country reached World Cup finals for the first time. Great success, indeed, but the Costaricans did not achieve it entirely by playing. Twice victories were awarded to them and if the abandoned game in El Salvador was not important, the disqualification of Mexico was crucial – if Costa Rica had to play against Mexico, most likely it would have been eliminated. Good lucky strike, but otherwise the team played well.
2.USA 8 4 3 1 6- 3 11
Luck had nothing to do with the achievement of team USA – they played as well as they could and reached the finals. USA reached finals once again, but practically for the first time after proper qualifications.

3.Trinidad/Tobago 8 3 3 2 7- 5 9
The team tried hard, but could not make it. Not a big surprise.
4.Guatemala 6 1 1 4 4- 7 3
Did not play full schedule, but the games against El Salvador even if awarded in their favour could not elevated them higher.

5.El Salvador 6 0 2 4 2- 8 2
The political situation of the country greatly affected their performance – 3 of their games in the final round were abandoned.