{"id":45967,"date":"2021-07-25T10:22:56","date_gmt":"2021-07-25T10:22:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45967"},"modified":"2021-07-25T10:22:56","modified_gmt":"2021-07-25T10:22:56","slug":"asian-champions-qatar-beat-el-salvador-to-reach-gold-cup-semis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=45967","title":{"rendered":"Asian champions Qatar beat El Salvador to reach Gold Cup semis"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"\">\n<p class=\"article__subhead css-1u046kd-Article\">Ali scores brace for Qatar while holders Mexico thrash Honduras to book their place in the last-four.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div readability=\"70\">\n<p>Al Moez Ali scored twice, making Asian champions Qatar the first team to reach the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on Saturday, holding on to beat El Salvador 3-2.<\/p>\n<p>Abdelaziz Hatim also scored for Qatar, who were invited as guests in the tournament, in the quarter-final clash in Arizona.<\/p>\n<p>Ali opened the scoring in the second minute by capitalising on an El Salvador giveaway.<\/p>\n<p>Just six minutes later, Hatim hammered a right-footed shot into the goal to make it 2-0.<\/p>\n<p>El Salvador were called for a hand ball in the 55th minute, which resulted in Ali scoring his second goal of the game off a spot-kick to give Qatar a commanding three-goal lead.<\/p>\n<p>But El Salvador were not about to go quietly and their comeback started in the 63rd minute when Amando Moreno passed to Joaquin Rivas who scored his side\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n<p>Rivas scored again 11 minutes later with a left-footed kick but Qatar held on to seal a spot in the last four.<\/p>\n<h3>Holder Mexico reach semis<\/h3>\n<p>Meanwhile, Mexico took another step towards defending their title by scoring three first-half goals en route to a 3-0 rout of short-handed Honduras.<\/p>\n<p>The holders cruised past a depleted Honduras squad that had lost several players to injury and COVID safety protocols.<\/p>\n<p>Striker Rogelio Funes Mori scored a header in the 26th minute to open the scoring for Mexico, who will next face either Canada or Costa Rica.<\/p>\n<p>Jonathan Dos Santos and Orbelin Pineda then scored seven minutes apart to break the game open at the State Farm Stadium in Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_1473308\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-arc-image-770 wp-image-1473308\" src=\"http:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/000_9G486P.jpg?w=770&#038;resize=770%2C513\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\">Mexico cruised past a depleted Honduras squad [Frederic J Brown\/AFP]<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Ali scores brace for Qatar while holders Mexico thrash Honduras to book their place in the last-four.Al Moez Ali scored twice, making Asian champions Qatar the first team to reach the semi-finals of the CONCACAF Gold Cup on Saturday, holding on to beat El Salvador 3-2. Abdelaziz Hatim also scored for Qatar, who were invited&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spotlight_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=45967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45967\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=45967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=45967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=45967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}