Even Argentina and Brazil have a hard time in Conmebol...They have a hard time defeating Bolivia and Venezuela lately. Qualifying in these two regions is not easy for the best teams! Messi can't score against South American teams, but goes ahead and nets 60+ to European Clubs/National Teams.
Improvement is not necessarily linear, right? Our 2-0 beating of what was basically Spain's A team not long after they won the Euro Championships doesn't mean they suddenly sucked. We were inspired, they were not. For one game. That was the golden age of Spanish soccer @ their prime. But that's soccer. Who in this hemisphere would any nat'l team rather beat than the US? Everybody gets way, WAY up at the prospect of sending the yanks packing. By giving Jamaica fits last night, Antigua proved they're not the jokes the media made them out to be before they played the US. The comment somebody posted earlier that tactics go out the window in CONCACAF road games is very astute IMO. (When JK's German tactitions played a Lichtenstein on the road they did not receive refereeing of the type that red cards Cobi Jones for a push after he's been literally punched & kicked w/out ref protection for 50 min.s. Or batteries bounced off their heads or fans jumping barbed wire to throw bags of urine @ the visiting team). IF we do not qualify for the WC or IF we do not advance to the quaterfinals in the WC...that would be proof we have not improved. IMHO.
He played with heart and pace but didn't get anything close to goal treat. Overall, the team looked more livelier than the A&B game but they need lots of work in the final third. On defense we did ok. DOLO had a couple of rough minutes at the begining but settle down as the game progressed. Johnson looked good but his defensive shortcoming where a bit exposed. Boca had an average game which is nothing to be proud of. On the positive side, I like when JK inserted Cameron in the second half. He did nothing great but didn't blunder either. He got some good pressure cooker minutes which is always a plus.
Quarterfinals of the World Cup? How do we figure our team made up of youth players and players of World Cups past will just suddenly go to the quarterfinals? Have we been stocking away Pele's in our youth system this entire time? Yes qualifying in for the WC is expected and should be. However we don't know what group we'll end up in for the World Cup. To just say we have not improved if we don't make the quarterfinals at this point in time is very much jumping the gun. People are getting expectations a little too high. Do people really think since Jurgen took over(which was shortly after the 2011 Gold Cup) that he's gonna turn us into a soccer power house in like 3 years or less? Best way to describe the USA soccer situation is the Redskins. Redskins had poor management from the owner down. For years they traded away picks for old players and feel behind the league talent and coaching wise. Now after 20 years of horrible play and disappointment they have a decent coach and a Heisman QB. That took 20 years to just have some hope of being good. Now I don't think we'll take 20 years but patience will be needed. We're not gonna become a soccer power overnight. We're not gonna suddenly become a team that puts up 5 goals and suffocates teams with our defense while entire NFL stadiums are packed to capacity every game with singing fans wearing red, white and blue
A horrible result would have been a loss. But it wasn't horrible, in fact, in the past 20+ years we've only won in Guatemala, what, once? Besides, we're still atop the group, with three months before the next qualifier. We'll be fine.