The 2018 WC cycle is over. One team is champion for the next 4 years and we are one of another 200 or so that aren't. Time to get the bad taste of last fall out of our mouths and start over. The playing field is level again.
Next summer’s Gold Cup and the start of 2022 qualifying can’t come fast enough. We need competitive games to start to get the stink out.
The only way to make that stink go away is the complete humiliation of T&T if Trinidad makes the Hex and preferably at Couva. Show them no mercy at all.
Well thankfully we have the CONCACAF Nations League coming up, so we have an actual chance to get relegated at something! Though seriously, not finishing bottom of the group in that stupid thing is unfortunately going to have to be a priority for us. Assuming it returns after the 2019 tournament, the thought of having to give up SIX international dates to play sub-Hex quality teams is...ugh. Just be thankful our WCQ slip up wasn't in the semifinal round. Take a look at the games that Canada has to play this fall.
The fact that we do not have a manager yet is another black eye for USSF. If we do not go with the current placeholder, we will have to start from square one with a manager familuarizing himself with the player pool. We could have had a head start, soon we will be behind.
A new coach is the last piece of the puzzle for us to all move on. The World Cup is over; the 2022 cycle has begun. I suggest everyone watch the Rising videos. It is a time for optimism and hope; I'm tired of being angry. However, I think the next coach will find that the fans, and maybe the media, will be much less trusting and forgiving. That after a terrible performance on the road in CONCACAF, things like, "we got a point", "they shot fireworks at 3 am", and "like to see hot shot Euro teams come here"; will be mocked. That a terrible performance at Honduras where a point is saved on a late goal in a game that should have been 3-1; will be analyzed and talked about and serious pressure put on the coach and team to fix whatever the problem was before the next road game.
oh yeah totally beat a really bad team...all is fixed. its like some people don't know that the late goal to mex, the draws at hond, panama all would've put the us in the wc. they think the t&t match was this magical thing.
I agree with you on the first part. I'm actually excited about the next cycle. I don't remember us having such an interesting core of young players to start a new cycle since I first started following the team 20 years ago. Some will pan out, some won't but I picked up a 2018-19 away jersey that I found on clearance the afternoon after the final was over. It was nice symbolism. I'm excited for the fall schedule of games, (and really am getting impatient for USSF to announce the rumor October game in Chicago). ... but man, the signs that things were going wrong for the team were there long before they started dropping points on the road in qualifying. And FWIW even in cycles where we cruised through qualification without breaking a sweat, a road point is still a good result in places like San Pedro Sula. The pitches are garbage, the refereeing is awful, strange flukes just happen. I'm far more mad about the sloppy play in the Columbus and NJ home matches this cycle than I am the draws in Honduras or Panama City. If we're going to overreact, best to do it to the right things. We could see something was wrong with the team by the middle of 2015 and neither Klinsmann or Arena knew how to fix it.
Canada (and everybody who didn't reach the Hexagonal) is in Nations League Qualifying, which is a one time thing to assign teams to the appropriate league. After that every team will play in every Nations League. We could get relegated and play worse teams, but relegation won't make us play more Nations League games.
League A has 3 teams per group, so 4 games min, 6 games max (playoffs) and the playoffs would theoretically be against Mexico/Costa Rica caliber teams. League B has 4 teams per group, so guaranteed 6 games against teams like Suriname, Domincan Republic, and Belize.
I agree. I just think the media was, "they'll qualify". Nobody will take that for granted and I think the fans and media will be hyperfocused on this team's performance all the time. Which is the way it should be.
I look forward to after every match the 'player x didn't play well he should never play for the usmnt again' and the 'player y didn't get called in and had he they woiuld've won by two goals'
"We'll never win until we abolish "Corporate Football (TM)" completely and replace the entire national team with the roster of Detroit City FC."
Couldn't agree more, a point on the road should never be seen as a gimmie, and a point in Central American should never be seen as a bad result. The formula remains the same, win at home, get a point on the road with Azteca being the freebie, and never ever put yourself in a position where you HAVE to get a result on the road!. This is Concacaf, tropical storms the day before a match, blind referees that see hands growing out of heads, midday kickoffs in the middle of the jungle, and fire alarms at 3am aren't possibilities they are guarantees! As for the coach no rush as long as we get the right one, even if means waiting until the fall.
You realize this describes CONMEBOL too. Playing in a jungle in 100+ degrees, then travel across a continent to play on a mountaintop with no oxygen. Packed stadiums with angry crowds who literally want to murder you. It's slightly different from traveling to a Caribbean or Central American paradise in front of a tiny home crowd. True, CONMEBOL has better pitches, and the referees are less crap. But on the other hand, they're playing slightly better quality teams than Panama and Honduras. It's a lame excuse that losing US coaches reliably bring up - that CONCACAF qualifying away games are tougher because travel, climate, crowd, pitch conditions, officiating - as if this wasn't true for 90% of the world. We should be reliably winning against teams like Panama and Honduras - even in away games. The gap in development, resources, investment, and talent is such that it's like a fly versus a flyswatter - the flyswatter won't always kill the fly, but you certainly don't expect the fly to turn around and put the flyswatter on the defensive.
A draw at Honduras OR at Panama OR at T&T OR at whatever other non-Mex/CR team makes the Hex is perfectly fine as an individual result, but really we need to win at least one of those games every cycle, as well as shooting to get at least a point at either Mexico or CR. And of course, anything less than 15 points at home is unacceptable.
Australia, no UEFA or CONMEBOL powerhouse, in fact a national team on par with the USA on average, went to Honduras and dominated them. They had absolutely no problems with any of the myriad excuses our coaches, Federation, and players routinely give. Oh, and Australia had to play there with a huge change in time zone that a USA team doesn't have.