Mexico (pictured) celebrates after defeating Honduras in the CONCACAF Men's Olympic Championship final on October 13, 2015, in Sandy, Utah. (Photo: Mexsport)
SANDY, Utah – Mexico captured its second straight CONCACAF Men’s Olympic Qualifying Championship crown with a 2-0 win over Honduras in the final on Tuesday at Rio Tinto Stadium.
The Tricolor under-23s also extended their winning streak in the competition to 11 consecutive games with its last loss coming against Guatemala on March 14, 2008. Honduras is 7W-0D-4L in its last 11 tournament outings. Those four setbacks, however, have all come against the Mexicans, including the last two deciders.
An own-goal in the first half gave Mexico the lead and Victor Guzman cemented the result with a stunning strike.
Honduras’ Bryan Acosta inadvertently put his side into a 42nd minute deficit, when a mishit shot from inside the box by Rodolfo Pizarro took a high bounce. Erick Torres jumped in the hope of back-heading the ball, but it sailed over him and hit off Acosta, who was facing his own net.
Guzman made sure of the result in the 69th minute with a severely swerving left-footed effort from 30-yards out that had goalkeeper Harold Fonseca -- who made numerous difficult saves throughout the evening -- going the wrong way.
Seven minutes earlier, Oscar Salas nearly equalized for the Hondurans, only for his right-footed effort from 23-yards out to crash off the right post.
Honduras was reduced to 10 players in the second minute of stoppage time after Kevin Lopez was sent off for a hard tackle on Arturo Gonzalez.
