When Super Bowl winners proclaim themselves "world champions," no one ever challenges them on the size of the world they've conquered. In the parochial existence of the National Football League, fans don't surround the road team's hotel and play the "whistle and car horn symphony" all night as the overture to the game. NFL players rarely need their passports and never have to worry about embargoes or State Department-issued travel advisories.
But that is not the lot of the soccer player. This week the U.S. national team heads to Honduras, where the ongoing political tensions nearly forced the game to a neutral site, and where Honduras' rabid fans will be hoping their team can punch its ticket to the 2010 FIFA World Cup, fulfilling a long held dream of former Los Angeles Galaxy striker Carlos Pavon.
Pavon, who will turn 36 later this month, has been a big factor in Honduras reaching the brink of qualification. His country's all-time leading goal scorer, Pavon has scored six goals in the current World Cup qualifying campaign (tied with Carlos Costly for the team lead). In Honduras' last home qualifying game against Trinidad and Tobago, Pavon's brace paced the team to a 4-1 victory.
In World Cup qualifying, success is achieved by holding serve at home. The classic example in CONCACAF is Mexico. El Tri has famously only ever lost one World Cup game at Estadio Azteca and will ride the formidable intimidation factor of that home-field advantage for as long as men in shorts kick inflated pig bladders around green rectangular fields. The only time Honduras qualified for the big show was at the 1982 Finals, but in this qualifying campaign Los Catrachos have posted an 8-0 home record (while outscoring their opponents 22-3) and it's therefore no coincidence that they are on the verge of reaching the Finals for the second time.
The much-traveled Pavon has played in Mexico, Spain and Italy, but his finest hour came in a World Cup qualifier in June 2001 when he scored a hat trick against Mexico. During his one season in Major League Soccer with the Galaxy in 2007, he only managed three goals in 18 games, but two of those strikes came in one of MLS's most dramatic regular season games, David Beckham's New York debut against the Red Bulls. Before a full house at Giants Stadium, Pavon scored off two Beckham assists as the Galaxy won a thriller, 5-4.
A similarly positive result for Pavon and Honduras against the U.S. on Saturday in San Pedro Sula will give them an inside track to South Africa (a Honduras win combined with a Costa Rica home loss to Trinidad & Tobago would see Pavon and Co. on their way to the 2010 Finals). The USA will have something to say about all this, of course, but Bob Bradley's squad have struggled on the road in the hexagonal round, so they will not be taking Honduras lightly.
Pavon is not the only familiar face to MLS fans on Reinaldo Rueda's team. Chivas USA alumnus Ramon Nunez and Toronto FC midfield maestro Amado Guevara will both most likely be in the starting lineup as well. But as it is in so many World Cup qualifying games, "the 12th man" might be the U.S. team's toughest opponent. As Pavon told FIFA.com this week, "The public's support will be crucial, and I'm confident we can get the win."
A win that would most likely see Pavon realize his dream of playing in the World Cup Finals. But a road win for the USA would definitely clinch a berth for the Red, White and Blue in next summer's quadrennial bash. Where, of course, Landon Donovan and the rest of the U.S. soccer idols would then only have to take on 31 other nations to truly become world champions.
Mark C. Young is an Emmy Award-winning freelance writer/TV producer who has covered several FIFA World Cups and Olympic Games. He is a contributor to Goal.com and also writes for the blog "No Mas."
