Celtic winger Luis Palma was at his creative best for his country on Sunday with a hat-trick of assists in a World Cup Qualifier.
Honduras came out on top as 6-1 winners against Bermuda, adding to their win versus Cuba through the week to put themselves in a commanding position in the first group phase of qualifying.
They needed to get off to a strong start in this initial stage with their next matches against Antigua and the Cayman Islands not until next summer, before a more difficult second group.
Palma is a key man for his country but got some social media criticism at half-time of the encounter with Bermuda after missing several chances in the first half, despite assisting their first goal.
After the interval, he showed what he’s all about, delivering two classy low crosses to bamboozle the opposition defence and help his side to a 3-1 lead in the eventual rout.
Palma ends up being Honduras’ star man
The attacker created an impressive six chances in total for his teammates, registering decent accuracy with crosses and long balls. He also won all of his personal duels in the match and had five shots of his own.
He ended up earning a 9.6 rating in the match per stat trackers FotMob, who designated him as the man of the match.
Honduras have a very decent chance of playing at the next World Cup with hosts Canada, Mexico and the United States all automatically qualifying and being excused from the current process.
Palma is now due to head off on a well-earned holiday having been given time off from Honduras’ upcoming friendly against Ecuador in the United States next week.
That will serve him well ahead of returning to Scotland for Celtic’s pre-season preparations in a few weeks.
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