Jonathan Bornstein headed in a corner kick in the fifth minute of stoppage time, giving the United States a 2-2 tie against Costa Rica in Washington last night, a decision that punched Honduras’s ticket to next year’s World Cup.
Bryan Ruiz scored twice in a four-minute span midway through the first half to give Costa Rica a 2-0 lead, but Michael Bradley cut the US deficit in half in the 72d minute.
With the US playing a man short after defender Oguchi Onyewu tore a tendon in his left knee and Costa Rica just 20 seconds or so from qualifying, Bornstein headed in a corner kick from second-half substitute Robbie Rogers from 7 yards.
At the end, US players held up a banner with the No. 9 of teammate Charlie Davies, who was seriously injured in a car crash Tuesday and is unlikely to play in the World Cup.
Onyewu fell down on the slick turf and was diagnosed with a torn patellar tendon, an injury that usually requires a recovery time of three to four months. Because the US had used its three substitutes, he couldn’t be replaced.
The US (6-2-2), which clinched a berth last weekend, topped North and Central America and the Caribbean for the second straight qualifying cycle by finishing 1 point ahead of Mexico (6-3-1), which tied, 2-2, at last-place Trinidad and Tobago.
Honduras (5-4-1) won, 1-0, at El Salvador and qualified for the World Cup for the first time since 1982, finishing ahead of Costa Rica (5-4-1) on goal differential, plus-2 to even.
In other matches - Argentina qualified for its 10th consecutive World Cup, narrowly getting the fourth and final automatic berth from South America with a 1-0 victory at Uruguay. Diego Maradona’s much-criticized team, which lost three straight qualifiers before beating Peru, 2-1, last weekend, got an 84th-minute goal from Mario Bolatti . . . Peter Crouch scored in the fourth and 76th minutes and David Beckham assisted on Shaun Wright-Phillips’s 59th-minute goal after entering as a second-half substitute as host England completed qualifying with a 3-0 victory over Belarus . . . At Basel, Switzerland qualified for its second straight World Cup, clinching with a 0-0 tie against Israel . . . At Chorzow, Slovakia qualified for its first World Cup, beating Poland, 1-0, on a third-minute own goal by defender Seweryn Gancarczyk.
