Venezuela held Mexico to 1-1 tie in a friendly at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium in front of 60,808 pro-Mexico fans. Giovani Dos Santos set up Aldo de Nigris‘ headerto give El Tri a 59th minute lead and the Mexicans came close several other times, with Dos Santos and Nestor Calderon hitting the post. But a Oswaldo Vizcarrondoheader earned Venezuela the draw.
“I think people don’t realize how close we were to making it to the World Cup. We were only two points away from that fifth spot [that advanced to aplayoff],” forward Alejandro Moreno, who plays for Chivas USA, told Scott French. “A result here or there goes our way, and all of asudden we’re talking about making our first World Cup appearance. It was disappointing to be so close, but it also gave us something to work on, and something to believe on. We believe in what we’redoing, we believe in the work we’re putting in, we certainly think we’re capable players. As a group, we really come together, sacrifice for each other and commit ourselves to a cause. …
“Coming into a stadium where there are 60,000 fans — and all of them except probably my wife and my two kids are supporting Mexico — it allows us to have an experience where you canmanage that and you can handle that and you can still put the ball down and play. We’re proud of being able to come here and get a result against a team that is in form with a lot of players that aredoing quite well and going through good spells with their club teams.”