The CONCACAF Balance of Power

That's kind of a biased sample because post 2010 WC was a down cycle for the U.S. and now we're in an even bigger one. We rose to a higher level than they ever have in the middle of the Klinsmann tenure, and I imagine in the middle of Bradley's it was an even higher peak. It's undeniable that they've caught up, but it has just as much to do with mismanagement of the U.S. program as it does their improvement. If we dismissed the current manager, chose much more sensibly in the future, and as a general rule kept managers only one cycle, I think they would pretty much always be playing catch up. And they'd have their up and down cycles, whereas we'd always be up comparatively. Of course, Bornstein's last second goal effectively ko'ed them from the 2010 World Cup. They weren't there in '98 or '94 either. They didn't advance in '02 or '06, and were near last in the latter. On a macro level, it's still Mexico and U.S. about tied atop. Sad that Jurgen mostly has helped create the perception that all these other CONCACAF nations are gaining on us big picture.

 

England, Italy, Uruguay and Greece agree with this.

The question for me is who is fourth? Panama and Honduras are trending downward in the short term, although cycle to cycle Panama is improving. Jamaica is also improving.

So not only is CONCACAF a three-headed monster at the top, its also improving in depth. Not a good time to have a downward trajectory in development for the US.

 

Honduras is 11th in CONCACAF in FIFA Rankings and 7th in CONCACAF in ELO. FIFA has Trinidad and Tobago 4th, and ELO has Panama 4th. Both of them have Panama, Trinidad and Tobago, and Jamaica 4th through 6th in some order.

 

Nice work. Repped.

If you start the Y-axis at 1000, or 1200, or even at 1400 the graph will be a bit cleaner and the lines more distinct.

 

This shouldn't come as a big surprise. Costa Rica doesn't have as much depth in its player pool as we do, but its starting XI and several of its top players would challenge for starting roles on our team. Keylor Navas, Joel Campbell, Bryan Ruiz and Celso Borges would all probably start for the U.S. Giancarlo Gonzalez, Christian Bolaños and Junior Diaz would be occasional starters or on the bench for us. I would've taken Alvaro Saborio as a striker in 2013-2014 ahead of Chris Wondolowski. Michael Umaña was a very underrated center back in the 2014 cycle. So, they've had good players in their A-squad.

And we shouldn't be too surprised to hear them talked about in the same breath as us in CONCACAF. They advanced further in the World Cup than any CONCACAF team, and they did it by winning what was arguably the true Group of Death at the World Cup. They conceded only two goals in the entire tournament, in 5 matches, which is pretty incredible. They were a penalty shootout away from a World Cup semifinal berth. And they've honestly played us pretty man up the last several times we've met them:

• Friendly - Sept 2011 - We lost 1-0 at home in one of Jurgen Klinsmann's first matches in charge.
• WCQ - March 2013 - We narrowly beat them 1-0 in a blizzard in the Rockies.
• Gold Cup - July 2013 - We won 1-0 in a group stage match.
• WCQ - Sept 2013 - We were thoroughly beaten 3-1 on the road in San Jose, Costa Rica.
• Friendly - Oct 2015 - We lost 1-0 at home.

So, since the 2014 cycle began, we've played Costa Rica 5 times (4 of those at home), with 2 wins and 3 losses. That isn't a fantastic record, unless you want to throw out the friendly results as meaningless.

 

PS: Wow, I'm excited about your new blog! I've really enjoyed reading your posts here on BS for the past several years, so you've earned a bookmark/favorite from me for your new site.

 

The data purist in me feels compelled to point out that the ELO zeropoint is completely arbitrary, and only differences in the ratings are meaningful.

 

My only quibble here is that Giancarlo Gonzalez has been a Serie A starter for over a year now, which I think would move him up into the same category as Navas, Campbell, Ruiz and Borges.

Sadly I'd say the Ticos can boast a starting XI (on paper) that is at least as good as ours right now. I can't remember the last time that's been the case.

 

The grammar purist in me wants to ask if you mean: "...only the differences between the ratings are meaningful", or if you meant "differences in"?

 

Good point, @Scotty. I had thought about including Gonzalez in the first category, but wasn't sure how well he played in Serie A since I seldom get to watch the league. But you're right that as an every game starter for a mid-table Serie A club, it's likely he would be a strong contender for a starting role on our team.

To your second point, I don't ever remember a time during the last 13 years when our starting XI has been as unsettled as it is now. On one hand, our pool has more "breadth" in that we have more solid players competing for spots at every position than we did in previous cycles. To support that point, look at some of the World Cup alternates from the 2006 cycle - guys like Todd Dunivant, Chris Klein, Pat Noonan, Chris Rolfe (circa 2006) and Kerry Zavagnin probably wouldn't be within reach of the national team these days - we have better players in the "middle class" of US soccer. On the other hand, I'd argue that the quality at the very top of the pool is weaker than it was in the previous 2-4 World Cup cycles, when you bear in mind that some of our key top players (Clint Dempsey, Tim Howard, Jermaine Jones) are starting to age out.

National teams are generally bigger than any one player, but I'm going to say something that I'm sure is going to cause some eyes to roll: You can't expect to lose a 50 goal, 50 assist, 150 cap player who was the lifeblood of your program for over a decade, and not see a dip in your team's results. We got by in the 2014 World Cup without him (and we felt his loss with ineffectual wing play and difficulty creating chances in 3/4 games), but I do think we're feeling the pain transitioning from an era in which Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey (our two best-ever field players) were such staples of the team.

 

I have limited internet access at the moment so I cannot include the numbers. I recently ran the numbers and since 1990 Costa Rica has earned more points per WC game than we have. So when they do qualify they are just as good, if not better than us.

Now concerning some of those specific years you mentioned. Yes they did not qualify for 1994 when there was only one competitive Concacaf qualify spot available, which was taken by Mexico. We may not have qualified under the same conditions CR faced.

You dock them for being near last in 06, which is true. We were dead last in 98 close in 06. We have never succeed in Europe, in 1990 CR beat both Sweden and Scotland.

As for 02 we advanced with 4 points and a minus 1 goal differntial. CR were eliminated with the exact same record and GD. The other group games broke in our favor, they did not break in CR's favor. CR also had the #1 and #3 team in the WC in their group.

And concerning those ELO rankings, I wonder how many more point CR would have if they had played every single gold cup game at home, like we do.

We are more consistent and hence a little better by always qualifying, but CR's highs are higher than ours. Their 2014 is better than our 2002 and their 1990 with a much tougher group is arguably better than our 2010 with the group of life. And your logic which docks CR for not advancing a couple of times and finshing near last once, would also mean we are not neck and neck with Mexico. Mexico advances even in Europe whereas we tend to shit the bed there. You cannot have it both ways.

What CR has done recently with such a small population is quite impressive. Perhaps only Uruguay is better in the 5 million population or less category.

 

What relevance is their population? That hurts your argument if anything within the sub-text here of the reasonableness they'd legitimately be above the U.S.' level now and how blamable that makes the current manager of the U.S. program.

Yeah, qualifying for the WC every time since '90, is a lot better than not qualifying almost half the time.

Beyond that, they've only finished above us once in qualifying.

And yeah, the U.S. hosts the Gold Cup, but Costa Rica has had 13 shots at winning it, and has never achieved it. They've actually only even finished 2nd once. They've been in the 3rd place match 1 out of the last 6 times. How many hosts besides the U.S. are there? It's a poor excuse for Costa Rica as a complete explanation when you consider how pedestrian they've been.

U.S. has advanced from the World Cup 4 times in their modern era, Costa Rica twice. Maybe they'd have less, instead of marginally more ppc, if they actually made it in their down periods like the U.S. has to their credit. And they are coming off their best performance, which c'mon, is not better than the U.S.' in 'o2. As a supposed U.S. fan you should know we were robbed against the mighty Germans and would have had South Korea who we drew against earlier in the tournament (also with an unfavorable goal call) to make the final.

Incidentally, we stuck it to Mexico in said tourney when we matched up head to head for the only time in the WC. I just mentioned World Cups because in abbreviated form that should have told enough of the story. But vis a vis Mexico, who did they have to thank for keeping their WC streak alive, subsequent to which they also advanced in the tourney? Maybe the U.S. should have not comeback vs. Panama to help them out and not make them pay for how much they sucked in qualifying. There is a big picture here. And looking at it, U.S. and Mexico are on about the same level, at least until that status was somewhat eroded in the Gold Cup and CC playoff.

For Mexico and Costa Rica to be on a comparative uptrend to the U.S. having Mexico beat us out in competitions like that, and Costa Rica surpass us on Elo, that's on the current program hijacker. And if he leaves Mexico would probably be back on even footing and Costa Rica back below us. That's the point here. He's feeding the narrative that everyone in CONCACAF is improving while we're standing still or regressing. With Jurgen as coach, but one dopey coach doesn't define a program.