SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — This industrial and financial hub in the Sula Valley is an unforgiving place, scarred by an ultraviolent past and a roasting heat index. On the southern edge of town, in the shadows of the Sierra del Merendon, stands Estadio Olimpico Metropolitano, splashed in the blue and white of the national flag and buffered by crops, a beat-up youth field and unpaved parking lots.
It is here that the U.S. national soccer team has come for penance.
Time is running short on a World Cup quest that veered off course Friday with a 2-0 home defeat against Costa Rica.