AMERICAN FOOTBALL

NEW YORK, June 11 2009 - Last night, Honduras beat El Salvador 1-0 (1-0) in a qualifying match at the World Cup 2010 (the North-Central America). The network's success was built by Carlos Pavon 14 'of the first half. Honduras is now the third largest in the group stage and tomorrow will face Costa Rica in the top match of qualifications: if at least retain the third position was er will qualify the final phase of South African World Cup. El Salvador, however, now fifth (but at a point from Mexico), will be played tomorrow everything against Trinidad & Tobago.

HISTORY - "Look, do not issue statements on the phone." Forty years after the outbreak of the Football War, the Argentine eighty Gregory Bundi attitude as if it was still the coach of El Salvador and dribble the topic with the foreign journalist. The disouta began in June 1969. The armies of Honduras and El Salvador are jostling for weeks at the border because of immigration, while the two national football associations have done for the qualification to the World Mexico'70. In Tegucigalpa, the June 8, the mood is red-hot issues nationalist hundreds of fans singing under the windows of the hotel where the players are rintanati rivals. Do not close eye el'Honduras win 1-0 at 91 '. In San Salvador, Amelia Bolanos, supporter of 18 years, for the despair you shoot a shot to the heart. The funeral will be the state and Bundi with his boys will march behind the coffin. On June 14, the eve of revenge, are the Honduran and not to sleep to get to the stage under cover of tanks: inevitably lose to 3-0.

LA BELLA - And since the goal difference in those days not yet counted, you must play the "beautiful" on the neutral dell'Atzeca, in Mexico City. On June 27 ends 3-2 to El Salvador and "gol mas dulce Country" marks the additional Mauricio "Pipo" Rodriguez. A month after the outbreak of the conflict announced that lasted just 100 hours, will do more than 4 thousand dead and will be remembered, of course, as the Football War. "But football has nothing to do with anything," assures us the kind of Honduras Ambassador to the UN, Jorge Arturo Reina. "The reasons were much more profound: the economic and social." No fight for oil or for the landlocked, not a war among the poor. El Salvador is five times smaller than the country's rival, but has a population double: it is the hunger, the farms are in the hands of 14 families and three hundred thousand Salvadorans landowners, over the previous years, emigrated to Honduras occupying hundreds of acres free of soil. At some point the government in Tegucigalpa, tired of this silent invasion, issue a law that allows the expulsion of immigrants: El Salvador, fearing the return flight of an army of desperate and a possible civil war, he decided to attack the 'Honduras. Said Reina, who in'69 was a professor of philosophy of law at the University of San Salvador: "The two countries have excellent relations and historically has always been so, except in those months of conflict. Today we have even a common dream: we are striving together to link the Central America and make it similar to the European community. "

RODRIGUEZ, GLORIA NATIONAL - In El Salvador, however, the engineer "Pipo" Rodriguez, the one that marked "the gol mas dulce" is still a national divo: 'It is true, we are still famous and that network was the most important of my career. But only because it opened the way (then had to beat El Salvador Haiti to qualify, ndr) to our first participation in the World Cup. Only for that ". He added: "We odiavamo players there, some of our friends were rivals. The matches were intense, but without malice. It was the newspapers of both countries to create the climate of war: they wrote that there was dancing in the honor and the need to win to make their nation great. " Un po 'di anni fa Bundi had explained: "If we had not lost so what we did, because President Fidel Sanchez Fernandez told me clearly:' Vinca because we play our dignity '. Arruolai win and I volunteer." But the coach of Argentina was then chased for no reason just before the World that he had conquered. If after forty years does not issue statements on the phone, it is perhaps also why. "The Football War" lasted just over four days. On July 14 the army of El Salvador for penetrated eight kilometers into Honduran territory, but with the aviation pieces soon he found himself without supplies and was forced to a hasty retreat. On July 18 there was the "ceasefire", but a real peace treaty was signed only on 30 August 1980 and had to wait until'98 to resolve the dispute over territory.

BASTA CONFLICT - Since then, Honduras-El Salvador was played without any problems and also 35 times that of yesterday, qualifying to the World of South Africa in 2010, was only a sporting challenge of great interest: both teams, 3rd and 5th respectively in the group, have real opportunities to qualify, as happened at the World of 1982. Victor Zelada, journalist of the newspaper El Salvador, said: "The War Football speak now only the elderly: is stuff of the past. Do you think with Honduras is not even great rivalries in sport. Consignments are heartfelt against Mexico and Costa Rica. " But who won the War of Football? Ambassador Reina has no doubts: "We lost both."