Olympic Qualifying, Wednesday: Giants follow suit, while Avila puts Guatemala in the driver’s seat

Canada 1, Mexico 1

Luis Angel Landin converted a penalty to give Mexico a somewhat undeserved point against Canada. Their defense was sloppy and it showed glaringly in the first 5 minutes. Andrazes Ornoch intercepted a shoddy Julio Dominguez clearance. He then found Will Johnson almost at the penalty spot. Johnson converted putting Canada up. It took Mexico about 80 minutes to wake up, but the last 10 minutes they had the Canadians on the backtrack, almost putting away an injury-time stunner. Their equalizer came well before that though when Cesar Villaluz - a prospect I’m still waiting to see shine - was taken down in the 22nd minute. Landin converted only to get sent off in the middle of the second half. Actually, both goalscorers, Landin and Canada’s Johnson were sent off 10 minutes apart from each other. Three Toronto FC players - goalkeeper Josh Wagenaar, forward Andrea Lombardo, and Tyler Hemming saw time. Wagenaar looked great in goal.

Guatemala 1, Haiti 0

Guatemala got the three points and the early group lead through an early Martin Avila goal. Former Rapid Fabrice Noel got in for the last half and played moderately well. Both looked poised to make this group an interesting one which - like the United States - if Mexico doesn’t wake up, there could be two unknowns heading to Beijing.

Standings look like this:

Group/Grupo A	GP/PJ	W/G	L/D	T/E	+/-	PTS
Honduras	1	1	0	0	1:0	3
Cuba	1	0	0	1	1:1	1
USA	1	0	0	1	1:1	1
Panama	1	0	1	0	0:1	0

Group/Grupo B	GP/PJ	W/G	L/D	T/E	+/-	PTS
Guatemala	1	1	0	0	1:0	3
Canada	1	0	0	1	1:1	1
Mexico	1	0	0	1	1:1	1
Haiti	1	0	1	0	0:1	0