Team USA has a tough road ahead in World Cup qualifying. I think we all assumed the United States would wind up in South Africa in 2010; it’s become a given in the past decade or so that we’d field a team in the tournament.
But it’s no picnic. Our erratic play has put us in an awkward position. (I blame Sunil Gulati, who could have hired Jürgen Klinsmann when he had the chance.) In CONCACAF, the top three teams qualify, and the fourth-place team plays a one-game playoff with a team from CONMEBOL, the South American zone.
Currently, the Yanks hold the #2 spot, behind Honduras, although both teams have 13 points. Mexico, after languishing in the cellar for a while, follows with 12 points (but an edge on the U.S. team in head-to-head). Costa Rica is in that dangerous fourth spot with the same number of points as Mexico. El Salvador and Trinidad & Tobago are fucked, stuck at the bottom with five points each.
So this could get interesting. The USA has only three games left: at Trinidad & Tobago (tonight), at Honduras (Oct. 10) and home against Costa Rica (Oct. 14), a game I will be attending, since it’s at RFK Stadium (a.k.a. “The Bobby”) here in Washington, D.C.
Barring some sort of freak accident, we should emerge from T&T with a win. Honduras is a bitch place to play, and that could easily be a loss. So the key will be Costa Rica — that game could be huge. The Ticos could very well be playing for that third spot, so they’ll be playing their asses off. And we very well could require a win in that final qualifier to keep from dropping.
The good news is that we’re coming off a good, solid home win after besting El Salvador in Utah last Saturday night. The Yanks won, 2-1, although the score should have been 3-1. Clint Dempsey drained one in the 41’ and Jozy Altidore scored in stoppage time in the first half, both off great balls from Landon Donovan (he’s really growing on me, I hate to say). Tim Howard played beautifully, as usual, and we notched the win without defenders Oguchi Onyewu (yellow card accumulation) and Jay DeMerit (injury).
After watching that game, however, I was reminded of a simple truth we should keep in mind over these next three games: FIFA referees hate the United States. The U.S. simply isn’t going to get calls their way. Last Saturday’s game reminded me of our 2006 World Cup game against Italy, which might have been one of the all-time greatest officiating travesties of any sport.
Never mind the goal that should have been, the entire game was called unevenly. And that seems to be the way the ball bounces for the Yanks. We’re not going to get any favours, so we might as well shore things up as much as we can and play through it.
(Also: Does it make an ounce (gram) of sense that a Honduran official calls a game between El Salvador and the United States? How about someone from outside CONCACAF?)
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