Kansas City Wizards defender/midfielder Roger Espinoza will be suiting up in South Africa this summer, as Honduras National Team manager Reinaldo Rueda named him in his final 23-man roster for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
With the selection, Espinoza becomes the 20th member of the Kansas City Wizards to be named to a World Cup squad, and the seventh player to go to the competition as a member of the club.
“I’ve dreamed about this since I was little,” Espinoza said. “My top goal was to go to the World Cup, and I’m glad I got called up. It’s where every player in the world wants to be.”
"We're extremely happy for Roger," said Wizards Manager Peter Vermes, who represented the United States at the 1990 World Cup. "Representing your country in the World Cup is one of the highlights of your career as a soccer player, and we're excited that he's able to represent not only Honduras, but also the Kansas City Wizards, as he goes into the World Cup."
Espinoza’s call-up comes just over a year after his first appearance with the national team in the UNCAF Nations Cup at the start of 2009. Espinoza scored his first international goal in that tournament, netting the winner in Honduras’ 1-0 win in the third place game against El Salvador. Espinoza has gone on to score three goals in 10 appearances for Honduras, the most recent coming against the United States in a 3-1 Honduras victory on January 23, 2010.
Nicknamed “Los Catrachos,” the Honduran National Team surprised many with a solid World Cup qualifying campaign, finishing third in CONCACAF behind the United States and Mexico. The team will play three friendly matches during a pre-World Cup camp in Austria, with their first test coming against Belarus on May 27th. The team will then play Azerbaijan on June 2nd, before concluding their pre-World Cup slate with a match against Romania on June 5th.
The Hondurans will face sterner tests in the World Cup group stage, as defending European champions Spain await them along with Chile and Switzerland. Should Honduras advance out of their group, they would face the winner or runner-up in Group G, widely considered to be the “Group of Death” with five-time World Champions Brazil, Portugal, Ivory Coast and North Korea.
