For decades, people have complained about the US "NOT" having home field advantage when they play in L.A. and other US cities. Hasn't this given us a great advantage when we play abroad? We played in front of 87,000 Mexican supporters in the Rose Bowl 10 years ago and won. This has happened all over. Playing in Korea with al those rabid Korean fans had no affect at all on our players. Having no fans doesn't bother Americans players. They feed off it. Just a few more to convert, that's all. 'Nuff said.
It works wonders for you when playing on the road. Unfortunately, it makes your home dominance a little bit less than it could be. But essentially, you're 100% right--this along with the fact that the US actively schedules unfriendly places to play abroad (aside from tough concacaf venues, we have scheduled tough road friendlies against teams in very unfriendly environs (Casablanca, Moscow), and against a lot of tough teams. This combination makes us a b*tch to beat in neutral site events (even though, as we saw last summer at the Confed. Cup, some "neutral sites" are so in name only (few US fans against thousands of Turkey supporters). All of this builds a lot of mental toughness, and it must make the occasional WC Qualifier w/ a strong home crowd seem like a freakin' vacation.
For those that think we don't have an advantage in the US: We've lost two home qualifiers in the last 20 years.
Well, is that because we have a home field advantage, or just that we dont have a road disadvantage? Only way totell would be if there were some neutral venue games to look at. Then again, how many "neutral fields" are there for the US team? I just dont think there is a good way to honestly get a feel for it.