CARSON – El Salvador. Guatemala. A South American showdown in L.A., a smattering of Southern Californians on both rosters, the grudge match going to the Salvadoran side, La Selecta, 3-1.
Local club teammates pitted against one another, frenemies for a night. Someone guaranteed to go home heartbroken, someone promised the taste of success – something of a bittersweet win-win, if it’s your club.
Bleachers bulging with raucous, partisan supporters all with somewhere better to be than tuned in for the NBA’s dud of a dunk contest – family and friends, coaches, teammates mixed in. A real home crowd, a rare treat for the globetrotters on the pitch whose biggest games are usually far afield.
There were 1,547 people piled in officially, because that’s all that would fit in the track and field stadium at Dignity Health Sports Park. That left probably another couple hundred more watching from the hillsides and balconies nearby, and who knows how many more watching a stream at home, wishing they’d gotten their tickets sooner – or, better yet, that these teams had played in the main soccer stadium right next door.
A sign of the times, of women’s soccer’s growing popularity everywhere, abroad and here. Of the sport’s evolution, on and off the pitch.
El Salvador’s big win – all three goals were Brenda Ceren’s – capped the inaugural Concacaf W Gold Cup Preliminary round, a triple-header that also sent Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic through to group stage play this week, and sent home Guatemala, Haiti and Guyana, respectively.
The Dominican Republic earned a spot in Group A, up against the United States, Mexico and Argentina – starting with the host Americans on Tuesday evening, back at Dignity Health Sports Park.
Full house — er, bleachers here at Dignity Health Sports Park for El Salvador-Guatemala. Tickets sold out weeks ago … gotta wonder how many more they coulda sold in the bigger venue right next door.
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