Honduras coach Luis Fernando Suarez had complimentary words for his team despite their second straight defeat at the World Cup.
Ecuador rallied to defeat Honduras 2-1 after Carlo Costly had given the Central Americans an early lead, but Suarez said their performance was much improved from a 3-0 defeat to France in their opener.
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"It was a very well-played match," Suarez said. "It was complicated to handle the nervousness and anxiety because of everything that was at stake. There are some players that have some way to go to get involved in the game. The effort and willingness always existed.
"Today the most important thing is that the team had the desire and motivation to obtain the win. It seems to me that we could've done much more.
"Today, there's something that we were missing. We didn't have that confidence with the ball today. We need more command of the game."
To advance to the knockout stage, Honduras must beat Switzerland, probably by three goals to stand any chance, although a 3-1 win would put them ahead of the Swiss on the head-to-head tiebreaker and 4-2 on goals scored. They would also need Ecuador to lose to France by at least two goals.
"It would be worse if we were eliminated. But we still have a possibility," Suarez said. In the match in Manaus, we will try to find the best ways to succeed to get a victory. As long as there's a possibility, we will not lower our guard and will fight to the very end.
We always said that our main target was to give our all and to make it to the next round. Today more than ever, we had to show that we didn't have any regrets.
"Within what we wanted to achieve in our defensive work, we lost our attention at times, but I was very pleased with what the team did in general terms."