KANSAS CITY, Kansas — Tottenham striker Clint Dempsey scored two goals to lead the United States over visiting Guatemala 3-1 Tuesday and into next year's North American final round of 2014 World Cup qualifying. English Premier League playmaker Dempsey broke a 1-1 deadlock with a goal in the 18th minute and added another in the 36th to spark the Americans, while the Guatemalans were eliminated when Jamaica's beat Antigua and Barbuda 4-1. “Credit my teammates. They were putting good balls in. I was lucky enough to get them to go in,” Dempsey said. “A little pressure on us but it's behind us now. We want to go to the World Cup. This is the first step to getting there.” Mexico, Honduras and Panama have also claimed berths in next year's six-team World Cup qualifying final round from the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football (CONCACAF). Honduras routed visiting Canada 8-1 to advance, while Panama moved through with a 1-1 draw at winless Cuba on the concluding night of the 12-nation penultimate qualifying round. Costa Rica claimed the last available berth with a 7-0 home victory over Guyana as Mexico blanked El Salvador 2-0. Iran upsets South Korea Iran overcame the dismissals of forward Masoud Shojaei and coach Carlos Queiroz to beat South Korea 1-0 in a bad tempered World Cup qualifier in Tehran Tuesday thanks to a late strike by captain Javad Nekounam. The midfielder capitalized on a poor Korean clearance to smash home a 76th minute right-foot shot from 13 meters to the delight of the packed crowd at the Azadi Stadium, who had feared the worst when they were reduced to 10 men in the 56th minute. Iran endured some nervy moments in the final stages, with former Real Madrid boss Queiroz forced to watch the final 10 minutes from the stands for remonstrating and leaving his technical area once too often. South Korean fullback Yun Suk-young came close to rescuing a point on his debut but his curling shot in the 85th minute clipped the top of net. Singapore referee Abdul Bashir played eight minutes of stoppage time with Iranian goalkeeper Seyed Mehdi Rahmati continuing to complain of injury, but his team pulled through to ease the pressure on Queiroz following its 1-0 defeat to Lebanon in its previous outing. The win means Iran joins Korea on seven points from four matches. It holds the two qualifying berths in Group A for the 2014 World Cup Finals in Brazil. Uzbekistan is on five points after beating Qatar (four points) 1-0 earlier Tuesday. Lebanon, which did not play Tuesday, also has four points. AFC boss slams Hammam The Asian Football Confederation's (AFC) acting chief Zhang Jilong has criticized sidelined president Mohamed Bin Hammam for attempting to derail an investigation into alleged financial wrongdoing by the Qatari through the use of “intimidation”. Responding to a letter dated Oct. 8, Zhang said Bin Hammam was trying to “intimidate and create technical legal issues and objections in the hope that the more serious allegations of secret commissions, bribery, corruption and other wrongdoings are never exposed to the light of day.” The AFC, which Bin Hammam headed for nearly 10 years, provisionally suspended him for 30 days on July 16 and then invoked a clause which allows them to extend the ban by 20 days. Zhang wrote to the AFC's member associations to deny any “conflict of interest in the ongoing AFC Disciplinary Committee action against Bin Hammam” or that he had “personally benefited from his support”. He also denied interfering with the ongoing disciplinary action against Bin Hammam, who was “being dealt with as provided for under the AFC Statutes and the AFC disciplinary code”. — Agencies
