Photo by ISIphotos.com
Santino Quaranta fought back tears as the national anthem played at RFK Stadium on Wednesday night. He was overcome with emotion at the chance he had worked so hard to get, the place on the U.S. national team that he looked to have lost forever.
Quaranta's battle with drugs, and successful recovery and resurgence in MLS was a happy enough end to the story, but he wrote an even better chapter to his comeback on Wednesday, scoring his first national team goal in his hometown stadium to help the United States post a 2-0 victory in Gold Cup action on Wednesday.
The Americans battled toe-to-toe with Honduras, which caused problems with its speed, but the American defense held firm and the U.S. attack received a major boost from second-half subs Benny Feilhaber and Charlie Davies to take over a game that looked to be in down with 25 minutes to play.
Quaranta finished off a Davies pass to make the score 1-0, and Brian Ching forced him the second goal off a great cross from Steve Cherundolo to give the U.S. team the victory.
There were several quality performances on the night for the U.S. team, from Feilhaber's classy passing, to Charlie Davies speed and vision, to Chad Marshall's rock-solid performance in helping shut down dangerous Honduran striker Carlos Costly.
While several Americans enjoyed solid nights, one who did not was Freddy Adu, who struggled to make a positive impact on the game and committed several turnovers in what turned out to be his final Gold Cup match (Bob Bradley revealed after the match that Adu was joining Benfica for pre-season in a pre-arranged move).
What did you think of tonight's performance? Who impressed you? Who didn't? Feeling good about the U.S. team's chances of three-peating as Gold Cup champions? Looking forward to the Haiti match on Saturday?
Share your thoughts below.
