New format. New coach. New blood. Same old CONCACAF. The Hex is now eight. As before, the top three squads move on to the big show and the fourth-placed team gets a shot at redemption through the inter-confederation playoffs. With four 3-game windows, as well as a single 2-game window, the schedule is busy to say the least. Here are the CONCACAF teams vying for a place in the World Cup (ordered by the very good and correct and current FIFA rankings): Mexico (9) United States (10) Costa Rica (44) Jamaica (50) Canada (59) Honduras (63) El Salvador (64) Panama (74) Match windows are as follows: September 2-8 - Matches 1-3 October 7-13 - Matches 4-6 November 12-16 - Matches 7 & 8 January 27-February 2 - Matches 9-11 March 24-30 - Matches 12-14 For those that care, here's the US schedule: Match 1 - @ El Salvador - Sept. 2 Match 2 - vs. Canada - Sept. 5 Match 3 - @ Honduras - Sept. 8 Match 4 - vs. Jamaica - Oct. 7 Match 5 - @ Panama - Oct. 10 Match 6 - vs. Costa Rica - Oct. 13 Match 7 - vs. Mexico - Nov. 12 Match 8 - @ Jamaica - Nov. 16 Match 9 - vs. El Salvador - Jan. 27 Match 10 - @ Canada - Jan. 30 Match 11 - vs. Honduras - Feb. 2 Match 12 - @ Mexico - March 24 Match 13 - vs. Panama - March 27 Match 14 - @ Costa Rica - March 30 The USMNT comes into World Cup qualifying riding high. Will it be enough to exorcise the ghosts of Couva? Probably not! It's CONCACAF, son! PROGRAMMING NOTE: Given that qualification will not finish until 2022, this poll will count towards the Grouchy™ Point Cup 2022.
There are a ton of European and African World Cup Qualifiers all scheduled at 2:30 today our time (September 2). For me the big game is England-Hungary, but there is another that piques my interest. For every sport there is a general rule that often the most entertaining games are between two evenly-matched bad teams, and today Andorra plays San Marino!
CAF qualifiers - ESPN+ UEFA Qualifiers - ESPN+ CONCACAF Qualifiers - Paramount+ AFC Qualifiers - Paramount + A lot of soccer available over the next week! Gonna be fun.
Matchday 1, done and dusted. Canada 1-1 Honduras Panama 0-0 Costa Rica Mexico 2-1 Jamaica El Salvador 0-0 United States It was... not a goalfest. But it certainly was CONCACAF! El Salvador has to be feeling pretty confident. Honduras, Costa Rica, and the US won't feel too bad about the results, if not slightly disappointed. Jamaica was so close to getting a really huge result. Not much to say since we've got 13 more matches ahead. Here be the standings after 1 match: Mexico - 3P / 1 GD / 2 GF Honduras - 1P / 0 GD / 1 GF Canada - 1P / 0 GD / 1 GF Costa Rica - 1P / 0 GD / 0 GF El Salvador - 1P / 0 GD / 0 GF Panama - 1P / 0 GD / 0 GF United States - 1P / 0 GD / 0 GF Jamaica - 0P / -1 GD / 1 GF Yay, soccer!
Matchday 2. Woof! Jamaica 0-3 Panama Costa Rica 0-1 Mexico El Salvador 0-0 Honduras United States 1-1 Canada Disaster strikes! I'm not talking about the US. No, Jamaica took the crown for worst matchday result. Great road win for Panama. While they lost, Costa Rica probably isn't sweating it too much; there's no shame in losing to the best team in the region if you can take care of everyone else at home. The result is better for Honduras, but El Salvador must be pleased with how they've performed in qualifying so far (Perez for USMNT coach?). As for the US? Given the other results, a tie is fine. It's closer to bad than good, for sure, but it isn't awful. Of course, we may be missing those points come March. What's more concerning is the team's play and Gigi's apparent inability to get the best out of his attacking players. But we're all acutely aware of that. Kudos to Canada for executing a good gameplan and not conceding the match. Here are the standings after dos matches: Mexico - 6P / 2 GD / 3 GF Panama - 4P / 3 GD / 3 GF Canada - 2P / 0 GD / 2 GF Honduras - 2P / 0 GD / 1 GF United States - 2P / 0 GD / 1 GF El Salvador - 2P / 0 GD / 0 GF Costa Rica - 1P / -1 GD / 0 GF Jamaica - 0P / -4 GD / 1 GF Get CONCACAF'd, y'all!
I think most people would have accepted five points from the first three games. They may have WANTED seven, but five would be fine. If we get there by winning in Honduras, that would mean we probably won one we expected to tie and tied one we expected to win, but the math would be the same. The problem is, we need to win in Honduras to get to that point. Which means there's going to be a big chance that we'll all be very disappointed by tomorrow.
Matchday 3... and it looks like qualifying is drunk. Canada 3-0 El Salvador Panama 1-1 Mexico Costa Rica 1-1 Jamaica Honduras 1-4 United States #Berhalter4Life? I am tipsy so just tell me I'm pretty. Anywho, here are the standings: Mexico - 7P / 2 GD / 4 GF Canada - 5P / 3 GD / 5 GF United States - 5P / 3 GD / 5 GF Panama - 5P / 3 GD / 4 GF Costa Rica - 2P / -1 GD / 1 GF Honduras - 2P / -3 GD / 2 GF El Salvador - 2P / -3 GD / 0 GF Jamaica - 1P / -4 GD / 2 GF Hydrate, fools. Qualifiers are back October 7.
Win at home, tie on the road. That’s not what happened but if it did, we would end up on the same point total so all in all a great success.
Honestly, given the competition, I would have hoped for/expected 7 points and been happy with 6. Retrospectively, I guess I'm okay with the 5 points, but I wouldn't have been happy with that going in.
Nope. With the team the US has, we should expect to beat Canada at home. We should also expect to be able to win one of the two away games. Or maybe this upcoming generation of players isn't as good as advertised.
If you want I can try to dig up my post somewhere about if an away game gets moved to the US, I'm all for it and I don't care to even bother trying to bend the opponents over on location, etc., as I'd just be happy to have the game on a semi-quality field. Edit: here you go https://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/usmnt-the-berhalter-era-pt-1.2090677/page-64#post-39749416 Funny enough, it was about the possibility of moving the El Salvador game