Belize National Team Doesn't Have Enough Money to Travel Across USA for Gold Cup and Needs Your Help

The United States National Team thumped tiny Belize 6-1 in the Gold Cup opener for both nations Tuesday. Chris Wondolowski score a first-half hat trick, Landon Donovan became the first international player with 50 goals and 50 assists and Stuart Holden scored for the first time since 2009.

Getting crushed by the Americans might be the least of Belize’s problems. As Fox Soccer reports, the tiny nation of 300,000 didn’t have the funds to pay for the estimated $150,000 in costs for participating in the Gold Cup before the tournament began. Belize opened its Gold Cup odyssey with Tuesday’s game in Portland, Ore.. Next comes a trip to Salt Lake City to play Costa Rica on Saturday. After that it’s a long flight to East Hartford, Conn., for the final group stage game against Cuba.

"So a telethon was staged which raised some $60,000. Barbeques were pulled together. But at the time of writing, the ‘Belize Jaguars’ were still some $25,000 short. They are taking donations on their federation’s website."

Here’s the website if you’d like to make a payment to help Belize out. It accepts PayPal. Help a national soccer team out. [via Fox Soccer]