Early goal helps El Tri intosemifinals

With its best GLENDALE, ARIZ. — players absent, Mexico has been anything but dominant in the CONCACAF Gold Cup. Still, “El Tri” is moving on to

the tournament’s semifinals. A goal by Rodolfo Pizarro just over three minutes into the game was all the offense Mexico could

muster in a 1-0 quarterfinal victory over Honduras on Thursday night.

With its offense bogged down, Mexico survived several Honduras threats in the second half.

couldn’t add to the lead, but thank goodness, the most important thing is we scored,” forward Angel Sepulveda said. “They made it tough to get the ball in, but we played a good game. That’s how it went, but we advanced.”

It was Pizarro’s first goal of the tournament and just the second allowed by Honduras in four Gold Cup matches.

“We made a mistake and it was costly,” Honduras coach Jorge Luis Pinto said. “This is exactly what we trained for.”

The win, in front of 37,404 at University of Phoenix Stadium, moved Mexico into a semifinal match against Jamaica in the Rose Bowl on Sunday. It’s a rematch of the championship gameof the last Gold Cup, a 3-1 Mexico victory in 2015.

Mexico and Jamaica played to a 0-0 draw this year in the Gold Cup group stage.

Jamaica beat Canada 2-1 in the first game of Thursday night’s doubleheader. The United States plays Costa Rica on Saturday in Arlington in the other semifinal.

The Mexican team was without many top players who had played in the recently completed Confederations Cup in Russia.

Mexico coach Juan Carlos Osorio said Wednesday he had planned to bring some of those players to the Gold Cup but was thwarted by “our bosses and their clubs.”