Well if Canada and qualify for the world cup after 30 years with how hopeless they looked as recently as 4 years ago, I don't think us going to the Olympics is that drastic a situation.
I would be very intrigued by a 4 match group style tournament prior to the final round of WCQ to determine who gets the sole "host" auto-qualifier. I dont think 3 countries should get an auto-spot anyway, and a three team series between US, Mexico and Canada would be very intriguing! The two losing teams go into the final round of Concacaf qualifying.
You're not going to have a World Cup hosted in the US and Mexico without the US and Mexico because money.
Well, we do get to qualify thru the U20 CONCACAF Championships, which is by far the US program's best level. We're back-to-back U20 Champions, and have been to back-to-back-to-back quarterfinals at the U20WC. Of course, the last cycle was cancelled. That team was ridiculously loaded, and we never got to see it. Of course our most loaded team would have been a hypothetical U23 team at the Japan Olympics. That would basically have been the USMNT, other than the keeper. [Slonina hadn't emerged yet.] But we had to qualify with like a 3rd string out-of-season MLS roster. And people freakout that our 3rd string out-of-season MLS roster lost to Honduras 2-1 (after beating Costa Rica). Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees. ---------------Pepi------------ Pulisic--------------------Weah -------McKennie---Musah---- -------------Adams---------------- Robinson-Robinson-Ricards-Dest ------------Mystery keeper--------- Bench: Mystery backup keeper Bello McKenzie Sands Cannon Busio de la Torre Aaronson Reyna de la Fuente Ferreira The players I can't even make room for on an 11 man bench are pretty incredible. Cole Bassett, Tanner Tessmann, Matthew Hoppe, Eryk Williamson, Bryan Reynolds, and those guys. So yes, now that the qualifying event is with U20s, many of the best of which are still domstic, we should qualify for the Olympics.............knock on wood. That team just drew with Argentina in Argentina if I remember correctly (with Messi watching).
That hasn’t been officially decided. Three hosts is a lot and taking all the good teams out of WCQ will be a big (really big) blow to CONCACRAP television revenue. Don’t be surprised if we get CONCACAF’d some way there.
It's certainly possible, but he has only been starting, in the championship, for the last few weeks. Hardly enough time to really evaluate his current form. Zach Steffen is very clearly not a rock solid top tier keeper. Is he our best? Maybe. I'm not very comfortable going into a 3 game group stage and single elimination with him. I think his lack of real minutes is leading to his shaky moments. Matt Turner had a hot streak, but has many of the same drawbacks. Sean Johnson just won MLS Cup with 2 pk shutout victories, but also struggles with consistency, and is not quite as good of a shot stopper in general. However, of the four he is the most likely to be playing regularly right up until the WC barring injury. I think the WC starter is going to be up in the air until the last minute and it will come down to current form. Do we run with a keeper who is sitting on the bench for great clubs (Steffen, maybe Turner by then), a keeper battling for a starting role in a second tier Euro league (Horvath) or a regular starter in MLS? Not as good of a problem to have as deciding between Friedal and Keller.
Completely off topic, but it still boggles my mind that our #3 keeper at the 2002 World Cup was Tony Meola.
If I remember correctly it was between him and Tim Howard. And Howard was still fairly young and had just gotten his first cap a few months prior, and Arena very much wanted to go with the experience pick.
I'd like CONCACAF to still have the three hosting teams play but for seeding purposes. All three know they will be in but whoever out of the three goes in Pot 1 and second and third out of the three hosts go by FIFA rankings. The other teams to make the tournament are those that finish 1st through whatever after taking the hosts out of the standings. That way we still get to play games that matter.
I've heard the theory advanced (and it makes sense to me) that Arena felt that we would only be using our third keeper in a deep-shit situation, and he wanted our keeper in that sort of situation to be someone with a lot of experience under pressure.
And of course, Tony Meola was "Arena's guy." Everybody knew Meola was going to be #3. Arena coached him at UVA. I don't remember any semblance of controversy at the time over the #3 position on that depth chart. The argument was whether Keller or Friedel should be the #1. [As we know, Howard wasn't the recognized #1 until much later. After the 2006 WC even.] Also, Tony Meola was superb for Kansas City in the early 2000s. One of the best seasons in the history of MLS was Tony Meola in 2000: League MVP, MLS Cup MVP, Goalkeeper of the Year, etc. leading his team to the title. Right now we're in a position in which we have three good candidates for the #1 job, but none of them have won it outright. It boggles my mind that people seem passionate about one over the other. Like Arena/Meola...................Steffen is Berhalter's guy. That's fine. We judge by the results. In the ocho, how many goals can we say were conceded primarily due to an issue with Steffen? Very few. He's been fine as we knew he'd be. Turner was fine too. Horvath would have been fine, but he hasn't played in our last 20 games.
You folks claiming Costa Rica was going to turn into a complete juggernaut in this window were right. I thought there was no way they were gonna grab nine points, and they did...and we still qualified.
Initial thoughts on the Ocho in retrospect: 1. 25 points being a tie between 3rd and 4th shocks me. If you had told me that the US would earn 25 points in the Ocho back in August, then I would have expected a comfortable finish in 2nd or 3rd. And I would have expected the line for 4th place to be around 20 or 21 points. So even though the US underachieved a bit in the Ocho, I'm not going to be too hard on Berhalter. 2. The reason why my expectation for the Ocho was way off was that Jamaica and Honduras massively underachieved. 3. Thank you to Honduras for getting that result in Panama on March 24 and putting them under pressure. This was the only match in the final 9 matchdays, other than Jamaica-USA in November, where one of the bottom 3 earned a point against the top 5.
A very weird cycle for Mexico. They got 2 points total against the US and Canada, they dropped points a total of 3 times at home, but they won 4 road games. Indeed their win at Costa Rica was the only time any of the top 5 teams lost a home game. And finished tied in 1st on points. Also Keylor Navas has to be the MVP of the Ocho.
Big credit and respect to Costa Rica. They looked dead in the water early in the Ocho, and it looked like their golden generation had aged out with no promising young players to replace them. Then they won 6 of their last 7 games to tie for 3rd in the table. That has to be one of the most impressive turnaround stories I've seen in my life as a fan of World Cup Qualifying. Really gutsy, impressive performance from them. I hope they beat New Zealand -- they deserve to go to a World Cup, IMO.
Congrats to that Costa Rica generation on a nice run but I will not miss them. So long Borges, Ruiz and Navas… plague us no more.