DaMarcus Beasley scored twice as the US beat El Salvador 4-0 on Tuesday, finishing group play at the CONCACAF Gold Cup with three victories and heading to the quarter-finals as the only team not to have conceded a goal.
The US already had guaranteed a quarterfinal berth before the game and will play Saturday in Foxborough.
Beasley gave the US the lead in the 34th minute, volleying a ball that bounded to him out of a cluster after a corner kick.
Landon Donovan made it 2-0 on a penalty kick in injury time at the end of the first half after the ball hit the hand of El Salvador's Alfredo Pacheco just inside the box.
Taylor Twellman, who plays for the New England Revolution of MLS on the same field, scored in the 72nd minute.
Beasley closed out the scoring in the 90th minute, taking a pass from former Revolution midfielder Clint Dempsey and scoring easily from close range.
His first attempt was stopped by Miguel Montes on the goalkeeper's left side, but Donovan got another chance when the referee ruled that Montes had stepped off the goal line early.
Donovan sent his next kick down the middle as Montes anticipated another shot to his left and went in that direction.
Both teams played aggressively in the first half and the US turned it on even more in the last 15 minutes before half-time.
Beasley's goal -- his first point of the tournament -- came from a corner kick by Donovan that sailed into a crowd in front of the goal line before falling to Beasley who hit the ball past Montes, low and to the right.
Beasley had two other excellent chances later in the half. He put a clear shot from 15m out high over the goal line in the 42nd minute then was stopped when Montes tipped his shot over the crossbar in the 43rd minute.
Meanwhile Carlos Ruiz scored the game's first goal in the 84th minute as Guatemala drew 1-1 with Trinidad and Tobago on Tuesday night to earn a spot in the quarter-finals.
Errol McFarlane leveled the scores in the 87th minute as Trinidad and Tobago avoided losing all three games in group play but were eliminated from the tournament.
Guatemala (1-1-1) finished second in Group B and will face Group A winner Canada in the first game of a doubleheader in Foxborough on Saturday.
Ruiz beat goalkeeper Jan Michael Williams after taking a feed from Marvin Avila.
Neither team scored in the three minutes of injury time. Jose Contreras had a chance, but couldn't control the ball as he entered the box and Williams picked it up.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier