The Men’s Olympic Team were defeated in Kashima tonight in their 2^nd game at Tokyo 2020. 

Despite dominating most of the game against Honduras, they couldn’t claim another win to follow the opening result against South Korea, losing 3-2 after conceding two late goals to the Central American side. 

The game started with a major disappointment as captain Winston Reid was injured in the 3^rd minute, having to be replaced by George Stanger. Disappointment didn’t last long thought as in the 10^th minute Liberato Cacace scored one of the goals of the tournament to make it 1-0, striking from well outside the area on the half-volley. 

A Honduran equaliser just before half-time dented what had been a strong performance but quickly after the restart The NZ Team took the lead again with Chris Wood getting on the end of Eli Just’s cross in the 49^thminute. 

Two goals in the final 15 minutes, assisted by mistakes in the Kiwi defence, saw Honduras claim the win on a night which showed great promise but was ultimately disappointing. 

“It’s a tough one to swallow” said Head Coach Danny Hay after the game. 

“We generally take time to work through a review process, and we’ll do that with the players, but they are obviously feeling quite down at the moment. The manner in which we conceded those goals is obviously disappointing but that’s football, it happens sometimes.”

Following Romania’s 4-0 loss to South Korea this evening, all teams in the group are on 3 points with it all to play for in the final game. 

Article added: Sunday 25 July 2021

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