Honduras may not be a powerhouse in football but with the pace at which football is advancing across the globe, Honduras can no more be underrated.
The “Los Catrachos”, as the Honduras national football team is known, played their very first international football match against Guatemala in 1921. Their best results so far are their qualification to the 1982 and 2010 World Cups.
World Cup history
Upon making their first FIFA World Cup return in nearly three decades, Honduras were faced with tough group adversaries in South Africa, including eventual World Champions Spain.
The Hondurans opened the tournament with a 1-0 loss to Chile, and soon became the ill-fated team to first encounter the wrath of tournament top-scorer David Villa, who grabbed both goals in Spain’s 2-0 win.
In their only other FIFA World Cup appearance, Jose de La Paz held the coaching reins and steered Honduras to a surprising opening 1-1 draw with Spain, the 1982 tournament’s hosts, and followed up that account with the same scoreline against Northern Ireland.
Their campaign was cut short, however, at the group stage after Yugoslavia beat Los Catrachos 1-0 thanks to a late goal.
How they qualified
Following their group-phase exit at South Africa 2010 and the departure of coach Reinaldo Rueda, Honduras went through a rocky period.
The appointment of Luis Fernando Suarez in March 2011 brought stability to the national set-up, however, with the new coach also working hard with Honduras’ youth sides, steering the U-23s to the quarter-finals of the Men’s Olympic Football Tournament London 2012.
Having gauged the quality of the country’s new generation, Suarez set about rejuvenating the full national team, giving it fresh impetus by drafting in a clutch of promising youngsters. The result was a convincing performance in Round 3 of the CONCACAF preliminaries, with Los Catrachos topping their group on goal difference from Panama to knock out Canada and Cuba.
The “Los Catrachos” have never progressed beyond the first round, have never won a game and they did not score a goal in their last World Cup appearance.
Group E rivals France will not fear the Central Americans but Ecuador and Switzerland have reasons to believe that Honduras could defy the odds and reach the last 16 for the first time
Switzerland exited the 2010 World Cup after a 0-0 draw against Honduras in their final group match, while Ecuador knows Luis Fernando Suarez, the Honduras coach very well.
The Colombian was hired by Honduras in 2011 after he had led Ecuador to their second consecutive World Cup in 2006. Suarez took Ecuador into the last 16 for the first and only time.
It is easy to overlook Honduras but while they lack star power, one of their notable strengths is the unity of the team.
A guide to how well Honduras is progressing will come on June 7, just eight days before its opening match against France in Porto Alegre, when it plays England in a friendly in Miami.
England is likely to win that game, but the result will be largely immaterial. What will matter most to Suarez will be how well his team fares against one of the stronger nations in the finals.
