U.S. World Cup hopes on the line
Failure to qualify would be painful blow to sport’s momentum
The question of whether the USA will rescue its World Cup qualifying campaign and reach the tournament for an eighth consecutive time or falter and deliver a painful blow to soccer’s momentum in this country will soon be answered.
The solution will hinge, ultimately, not upon how good the U.S. men’s team is but how tough it is, how much character it has and how it handles the stress of having everything on the line.
That is because the time for the USA to show it was the best team in the CONCACAF region heading into Russia next summer has passed, that opportunity lost. Mexico and Costa Rica have run away with qualifying, with the former having secured its spot in the tournament and the latter moving to the verge of it by beating the Americans on Friday in New Jersey.
The top three qualifiers from
“We have got to go there and get a result. It is going to be very tight.” U.S. goalkeeper Tim Howard
CONCACAF reach the World Cup and the fourth goes into a playoff, making this perhaps the most forgiving confederation in world soccer. Heading to Honduras for Tuesday’s critical eighth game of the 10-match final qualifying campaign, the USA has used virtually all that latitude and is running out of second chances.
“We are going to find out, aren’t we?” coach Bruce Arena said when asked if he thought his men had the character to cope with their troubled situation. The USA and Honduras are tied with eight points, with Panama at seven, with three games to go.
For those who saw Arena’s opening game of his second stint in charge in March, Honduras might seem to be a pushover. That game six months ago ended in a 6-0 victory, but going to Central America is a different proposition.
Four years ago, the last phase of the campaign to reach the 2014 World Cup ended in defeat in San Pedro Sula, the same location as Tuesday’s game. The crowd, as then, will be hostile, the state of the field terrible and the temperature high thanks to a midafternoon kickoff designed to maximize discomfort for visitors.
“I don’t subscribe to this no- tion that CONCACAF is an easy place to qualify from,” U.S. captain Michael Bradley said. “There are difficult places to go, difficult teams to face and tough challenges to overcome.”
Things were looking fine until Friday. Memories of the two defeats suffered under Jurgen Klinsmann to open qualifying were largely erased when Arena went undefeated in his first 14 games, including four World Cup qualifiers.
But losing at home has dire consequences, especially in CONCACAF, where the advantages of hosting are more pronounced than in other regions. The USA has never lost two home qualifiers and reached the World Cup.
“It is a good opportunity now (to show character),” goalkeeper Tim Howard said. “The pressure is on us, but the pressure is always on us. We have got to go there and get a result. It is going to be very tight. The objective is ( by) early on in November to be qualified for a World Cup. That is the plan.”
November is when the playoff, against the fifth-best team from the Asian region, would be held, in a home-and-home format.
Three wins to close out qualifying will be enough to get the job done automatically for the USA. The visit to Honduras will be fol- lowed by a home game against Panama in Orlando in October, then a trip to Trinidad and Tobago, the weakest team in the group.
Keeping matters in its own hands is vital, a luxury that would be erased with a defeat in San Pedro Sula.
American soccer has been on a steady rise for a long while yet still relies on a significant boost in interest from being involved in the World Cup every four years.
Missing out on that would be a huge setback for the state of the sport in America and the national team and its younger players.
All that is on the line. Funny things happen late in qualifying. Teams that have qualified sometimes rest players, something concerning to the USA, with Honduras due to play Mexico and Panama to face Costa Rica in the last round of games.
So be it. Sooner or later, the USA needs to fix its own problem, and the time to do it is now.