On Tuesday evening Douglas Martinez and Honduras stood and watched as Mexico celebrated its victory in the Concacaf Men’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament Final in Guadalajara, Mexico. For Martinez, it was a bittersweet ending to a nearly month-long tournament to qualify for the Tokyo Olympics this summer which his team did, despite losing in the final.
Having toppled the United States in the semifinal on Sunday, Honduras reveled in knowing it had qualified for the Olympic games alongside its final foe and tournament host Mexico. Earning one of two spots in this summer’s Olympic games, Martinez will now have the opportunity to represent his home country during one of the largest sporting events in the world. Should he be selected to the 18-man roster this summer, Martinez will be the second-consecutive former Real Monarchs player to represent Honduras in the Olympics, joining Elder Torres who was part of the 2016 squad that journeyed to Brazil. While Martinez had a relatively quiet tournament, he did play a crucial role in pushing Honduras to the Games, scoring one goal in four matches.
Tuesday's evenly-matched game would go all the way to penalties following a 1-1 draw through regular and extra time periods where Mexico would reign victorious for the eighth time in the tournament’s history. Martinez started the match and played 66 minutes before being brought off for fresh legs in the attack.
The back-and-forth game remained scoreless through the first 70 minutes of the match before Honduran midfielder Edwin Hernandez broke drought, lacing a left-footed strike from deep outside the 18-yard-box to give Honduras the 1-0 lead. As the end of the match approached it seemed as if Honduras would take the victory, but in the 80th minute Mexico was awarded a penalty and Jose Macias took the shot to tie the game.
Through two periods of extra time the score remained knotted, signaling the need for penalty kicks. It was Mexico’s goalkeeper, Sebastian Jurado who opened the shootout by denying Honduras' first attempt in the shootout, propelling Mexico to make all five of its attempts in route to a 5-4 shootout victory.
Martinez is expected to re-join RSL in Tucson, Arizona for preseason in the coming days. While in Tucson, RSL is set to face the Colorado Rapids on April 3 (6:00 p.m. MT; KSL TV app), Phoenix Rising FC on April 7 before closing the trip with a match against the LA Galaxy on April 10 (5:00 p.m. MT; KSL TV app).
