Canada - A+ Hard to give anything else. Even without the region's best player for half of the games, the team wins the group. Jon Herdman was, by a wide margin, the biggest difference-maker in this event. Costa Rica - A- When you're left for dead halfway through the cycle and come back with the second half of the cycle that they had, it's hard to argue otherwise. An aging team that somehow found its legs. Mexico - B For all of the grief and hand-wringing about this team and Martino, they comfortably qualified. This is a team with some aging stars, injury issues, and not a lot of depth, and they finish second in the group. I rate Martino's coaching job in this cycle a lot higher than many here. USMNT - B- Yes, they qualified and took four points from Mexico. But they were the biggest underachievers of the four qualified teams. Still have major questions at goalkeeper and with the ability of the team to break down a defense that's willing to stay compact and organized. Also had a poor road record and just one point against Canada. El Salvador - C They didn't qualify, but they sure made life tough on a few teams. Honduras - D Not much expected, and not much provided. They just filled out the group. Panama and Jamaica - F Panama had qualification clearly in the crosshairs, and they blew it. This was a missed opportunity for them. Jamaica is just a complete mess right now. No amount of dual nationals playing for them can overcome how much of a hot mess their federation is.
Any team that qualifies gets an A. CR has not yet qualified and has an "I" for incomplete. Regardless, all ratings are set to zero and no longer matter.
B+ for the U.S. I expected a top two finish and overall a relatively comfortable run. Three points off the mark from my expectation, but given the injuries and the reality of the three game window I’m not boo disappointed. Main points of interest for me were getting back the home wins against Mexico and Costa Rica, and that happened. With better goalkeeping I think we have 3-5 more points, that’s an issue going forward.
So Costa Rica gets more credit for their good back half than their dire first half and gets rated above two teams that finished ahead of them and actually qualified? Interesting grading curve, that.
I think B- is the right grade for the US. They qualified, but barely made the top 3 on goal difference despite a significant talent advantage over most other teams. I would say a C or lower if they finished where they did and everyone was healthy for most of the games. But the amount of injuries they had to withstand while trying to put together a new team should be taken into account. I can't go higher than a B for a team with the talent edge they have over most of the region for qualifying by the skin of their teeth, but they qualified and we have time to get things right before Qatar. I just hope the team that shows up in Qatar is in better shape than the team we have seen in most of qualifying.
Probably a C+ for me. Maybe as high as a B minus, given our performances against Mexico, and the way we saw out this final window and got the big performances we needed when it really mattered. To get an A, they would have had to beat Canada at home, draw them away, draw Panama away, and pick up at least one more road win (or a draw against Costa Rica's B team at the end). Those are high standards, but we've had (more experienced, but less talented) teams in the past that I believe could have accomplished all of those things For a B, they would have needed at least 1 or 2 of the above.
Sounds like someone took a lot of classes pass/fail. But seriously, my only change to the OP's list might be to upgrade ES to a C+, for the smallest country in NA they did a good job.
Any team bad enough to be "left for dead" doesn't get an A of any type. That's absurd. You need to factor in all the games that dug them that hole in the first place. The US was fine. Solid B based on performance. A if you grade it as pass / fail. The team lost Weston Dest and Aaronson and got destroyed with a stomach bug. Still qualified. People too worked up over a completely meaningless game against Costa Rica. The US played well enough that the last game of qualifying was irrelevant. I'll take that every single cycle.
so you’d potentially give half the group an A? I don’t think grading works like that…at least not in any classes I’ve ever taken. Canada gets an A from me. They were pretty good all qualification, took the game to US and Mexico away, and generally look like they could win some games in the World Cup. Costa Rica gets a B+. They were a mess at the beginning of the cycle, but seemed to have solved their problems and performed well in the back half. I fully expect them to qualify for the World Cup. Mexico B-. Maybe the least talented Mexico squad I've seen. They were kind of meh during qualification, but never really seemed in danger. USA C. Did the bare minimum with the most talented squad in the Octagonal. We really struggled offensively and limped into the finish getting shut out in 3 of our last 5 games. A lot of work to do if this team is going to progress at the World Cup. El Salvador D. Never had any real chance of qualifying, but played hard. Panama D. Started well but collapsed at the end. Honduras F. I'm baffled by what happened to this team. They couldn't win a game at home against ANYONE? Jamaica F. Recruited some very talented English dual nats but were somehow still terrible. Actually kind of impressive that they were this bad with players like Leon Bailey and Michail Antonio.
My scale A = qualifying two matches early B = qualifying one match early C= qualifying D= 4th place F = 5th or 6th We virtually qualified one match early so B-. I don't give a damn about the talent of the roster because the best talent was often hurt plus we were short on experience. It gets hard to quantify all that junk so I call it wash.
What grading scale are we doing? The one when I went to school, which averages around a B? Or where C is supposed to be a literal average? I think the US did an overall average job. It would be slightly below average, but I think they get a boost because of injuries, youth and a complete lack of playing time together. This team never really clicked, aside from when their physical dominance really gets at Mexico. There's some real issues at real important positions where the talent doesn't play or is just too young and inexperienced for the position. We didn't play to our potential, and some of that is the players and coaches. And some of that is circumstances I won't hold against them.
Canada A Mexico A United States A Costa Rica Incomplete Panama F El Salvador F Honduras F Jamaica F There are no trophies for finishing 1st or 2nd. There are no moral victories for finishing outside the top 4. You succeed or you fail. That's it.
Without quoting the graph, I'll say that it was about 17th percentile. One way of looking at it is that we got 15 points against the rest of the top six. In the five Hexagonals we qualified from, we averaged 19.6 points with at least 17 every time.
We have a very young group. Based on results, we were arguably the best home team in the Ocho. The results tell us we weren't great on the road. Learning pains with the young group that I expected. I don't know where all of these bell curves, and expected results analytics, come from. Its all BS if you ask me. What are these ELO projected points based on? Results. Well, both the Gold Cup and Nations League knockouts were played at home. Many of our friendlies were played at home or a netural site. How do these projections account for a young group traveling to Central America? How do they account for these three game windows in a short period and needing to rotate? How do they account for a rash of injuries to key players? Reyna, Pulisic, McKennie, Richards etc. played half our games or less due to injury. Do they account for McKennie breaching COVID protocols and getting suspended for some of our most important matches? [Namely, our one home game that we didn't win.] Why can't people...............just be happy?
For the CONCACAF Ocho WCQ the USMNT average age is 24.3 yrs.Canada is next closest at 27.3 … 3 years older.Highlighted yellow is qualified for Qatar World CupHighlighted green is teams still active for the last 3 spots. pic.twitter.com/z89cwIM6UI— scott jorek (@Burgermeister73) March 31, 2022
From further down this thread... Now looking at the average age of every ’22 FIFA WCQ match.USMNT ranks 3rd youngest out of 196 participating nations. pic.twitter.com/it4xaHetyv— scott jorek (@Burgermeister73) March 31, 2022 But we really care about the top nations. Looking at the top 50 FIFA ranked nations along with any other nation qualified or still active in qualification.The USMNT is the youngest at 24.3 yrs with New Zealand 2nd youngest at 25.9 yrs. pic.twitter.com/GhOjxk84yU— scott jorek (@Burgermeister73) March 31, 2022 The US is almost two years younger than any other good nation. Nigeria is 1.8 years older.
Even more telling.... Looking at ONLY the nations qualified for Qatar World Cup (assuming 🇨🇷🇵🇪🏴 grab the last 3 spots).The USMNT is less than 3σ younger than the rest of the field. pic.twitter.com/01oq6s8jN9— scott jorek (@Burgermeister73) March 31, 2022
Finishing tied for 3rd with the player pool the U.S. has? 3 points BEHIND Canada? What is the minimum passing grade? That is what Berhalter's team deserves. With a better coach the U.S. qualifies comfortably in first place, like in 2006, 2010, and 2014. Especially with such a mediocre Mexico team.
Not 100.00% on this, but I'm pretty sure we didn't use a single player this qualifying cycle who participated in the 2014 cycle, the last time we qualified. Brooks and Yedlin weren't added to the squad until after the qualifiers ended, and Ream hadn't yet worked his way into the team. That's nutty. Imagine is Musah or Reyna or Pulisic or Wes weren't part of the qualifying squad in 2030. Hard to picture. Upshot being this team is still playing with an arm tied behind its back, thanks to a missing generation of players aged 25-35. And it's all the more impressive when you consider how many games Pulisic/Wes/Dest/Reyna missed on top of that. Anyway, give us a solid B for qualifying. And let's hope we can make a leap forward by November to get an A for the Cup.
The only tweak I would make to this in the post-2014 era is that FIFA ranking affects World Cup seeding. Set Pot 1 at A+ and you have: Mexico A USA A Canada B+ Costa Rica I (B+ or F) Rest of CONCACAF F
Wikipedia shows these countries to be in NA. You're right if you're talking area size and only on continental NA but if you're talking population which to me seems more relevant then ES has a bigger population than Belize, CR and Panama while Nicaragua is very slight higher. Looking at this I'm amazed I didn't realize how much higher the population In Honduras is compared to the rest but especially Guatemala which basically doubles Honduras while triple or more the others.