USA qualifies for 2022 World Cup
The USMNT qualified for the world cup tonight after losing a pretty tepid match to a hot Costa Rica team 2-0. The team finished third in qualifying behind Canada and Mexico. Costa Rica goes to a playoff with New Zealand for one of the last few spots.
This marks the end of qualifying for the US until the 2030 cycle, as the team will auto-qualify as a co-host for the 2026 tournament.
Now the question is who are the 23 guys getting on the plane to Qatar in November.
March 30th, 2022 at 11:07 PM ^
You could tell they were just trying to qualify. Against a B squad CR due to yellows, I was still hoping for a draw.
I came up with this to organize my thoughts about the 23 last night. Feel free to disagree loudly. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1EZeU4TSXQNagXH-Z-IhW9VNn9sTCqHWq2412TuIwwI8/edit?usp=sharing
I think this is fairly close to what the final 23 will be too. I would bet long makes the team over brooks, although I would love for brooks to make a comeback. I also don’t think you can take only two strikers unless they are married to only playing a 4-3-3.
March 30th, 2022 at 11:26 PM ^
It's nice to not be Italy.
It’s nice to be in CONCACAF.
March 31st, 2022 at 10:09 AM ^
We're like the MAC and all other regions are Power 5.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:42 AM ^
I tried doing it by continent=football conference, but the sheer vast difference between Europe/South America and the rest is substantial.
And Oceania is waaaaaay down there, but it's why they get a half bid.
I'd say Asia is the easiest qualifying though with 4.5 spots and 5/6 teams actually competing for them, but it's close.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:51 AM ^
Eh, there's only two elite regions: UEFA and CONMEBOL (and UEFA has a lot more teams).
The rest are all "mid-majors" with Oceania being low major.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:55 AM ^
Ignorant but good faith questions here - (1) is Concacaf way weaker than the other regions? And (2) is the WC distribution unfair?
Soccer's best countries are in Europe, Latin America, and Africa right? Europe is clearly the SEC of soccer, South America has lots of good teams and seems like half of them make it to the WC, and Africa it seems like they don't get very many spots even tho they're good and populous. Asia has lots of countries but not lots of spots - but it's also not exactly the most popular game in most of Asia, right? Like, Japan prefers baseball, India cricket, China maybe basketball, right? Maybe the Arab countries prefer it and there are 2 of them going as well as Iran. Oceania has only 1/2 of a slot, they're clearly the mid-major of this sport.
So where does CONCACAF lie? I'm guessing 4th strongest league - i'm not sure if South America or Africa is the Big Ten, and I'm not sure whether the other is the ACC or the Big 12, but we're clearly something like the Pac12 right? And Mexico is our USC/Oregon? Or are we behind Asia too, making us something like The American?
Also - is the number of slots distributed considered unfair? I get that it's tough to be Europe - just like it's tough to be in the SEC - but they have more than 1/3 of the spots in the WC, and the same number of guaranteed spots as Africa, Asia and South America COMBINED. I get that Asia, with half the world's population, doesn't care as much about soccer. And I'm guessing Africa and South America, while very good, don't make it to Europe's level. Still, Africa has more people than Europe but way fewer slots. As an ignorant soccer fan who mostly only pays attention during the WC - it doesn't seem unfair to me. Like, do we want to see a tournament that has even more European squads in it? Do we want a CFP with just SEC teams in it? Am I rightin thinking Africa needs more spots or am I over rating their soccer?
We're a weird region because the gap between the top 2-4 teams and the rest is pretty huge. Mexico/US/Costa Rica (and now Canada apparently) are all legit 2nd-3rd tier programs, but after that it gets dire really quickly.
Africa doesn't have any teams better than our best, they just have more. Asia is similar to us: Some 2nd tier teams and a lot of trash.
I'd say it's relatively fair overall. It'll always change based on changes in relative strengths of regions, but few regions ever have more than 1 team that truly doesn't belong.
I think that you are overrating CAF teams.
Wikipedia has a chart showing historic success of teams from each confederation. The gist of it is that UEFA and CONMEBOL teams have dominated. Then CONCACAF teams have slight edge over CAF and AFC teams. OFC is in a distant 6th place.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIFA_World_Cup
There may be more parity amongst the CAF teams than in CONCACAF, but I don't think that the quality of the qualifying teams is any better and so I don't think that more slots for CAF teams would be justified.
Thanks! I couldn't find the chart but I'll take your word for it. I am surprised the African teams aren't stronger, I had kinda thought they were but again I'm very much a fair weather fan
Africa tends to have a lot of mid-tier depth, ie 10-12 teams that are very solid who are competing for only 5 spots.
In additions, because there are so many nations, Africa has a pretty wonky qualification system of 10 - 4 nation groups. Sometimes this ends up with two historically good teams in the same group. It's then topped off with two-leg playoffs among randomly-drawn group winners, which can result in things like the two finalists for the Africa Cup of Nations playing off for a single spot at the World Cup (which just happened with Senegal and Egypt). It's why you see a lot of inconsistency in which nations qualify from Africa, as opposed to other confederations.
(1) is Concacaf way weaker than the other regions?
The long answer depends on how you define weaker, but the short answer is no, CONCACAF (North and Central America and Caribbean) is probably the third best region behind Europe and South America.
The definition is important, though, because there are different ways to define strength, such as how good are the best teams, how good is the average team, how good are the worst teams, etc. CONCACAF typically has two solid teams (Mexico and the US), a few decent teams (Costa Rica, Panama, recently Canada), some meh teams (pretty much the rest of Central America), and a lot of garbage (the various Caribbean countries). So CONCACAF is pretty top heavy. Africa (and maybe Asia too) are probably stronger in the middle, not surprising given that over 3/4 of CONCACAF are the small Caribbean teams. But I'd say that the top CONCACAF teams are typically clearly better than the top teams of all but Europe and South America. And I feel like looking at the top is the best way to judge the regions; trying to see what region's middle of the road teams are marginally less awful doesn't seem very useful in the grand scheme of things. Instead I prefer to look at who has the best chance of success in competitions like the World Cup.
For comparison sake, Europe is clearly the best region, with a staggering number of elite, very good and good teams (Mexico and the US typically top out at good to very good, while the best of Africa and Asia are usually no better than good). South America is no slouch at the top ether, with typically a few elite teams, and has the best depth top to bottom, though this is helped by the fact that there are only 10 teams in a soccer crazed continent.
(2) is the WC distribution unfair?
It really depends on what you value, and is very similar to the arguments surrounding the NCAA tournament, such as P5 vs mid major at large qualifiers. If you value talent, Europe and South America deserve even more bids. Every World Cup cycle, there are European (and probably South American) teams that don't make it that are probably better than the best teams out of Africa and Asia (not to mention the lower ranked qualifiers from those regions as well as CONCACAF). On the other hand, the World Cup is very Euro and South American-centric as it is. Europe already makes up close to half the field (13/32), and 4 or 5 out of 10 (depending on the play-in) South American teams make it as well. It's hard to justify adding even more of these teams at the expense of the rest of the world; if you want to watch an all European/South American tournament, you can watch the Euro or Copa America championship. A lot of the fun of the World Cup (just like the NCAA tournament) is seeing all of the "other" teams competing and occasionally pulling upsets.
There's no easy answer, since the competing values will always be at tension. And I'm not sure expanding the tournament, like they are in 2026 (from 32 to 48 teams) really helps, since it just dilutes things (just like I don't think going from 64 to 68 in the NCAA tournament makes things better for anyone except the four extra teams that make it now).
It’s hard to justify Europe getting fewer slots when Italy, Sweden, and at least one of Wales and Ukraine (all top 30 teams in the FIFA rankings) will miss the WC.
Had the World Cup structure stayed the same for 2026 I would have liked to see them implement something like what concacaf has, where the lower level teams play each other to move to the next round, and the best teams aren’t involved until a third or fourth round. Instead of nearly 60 teams all playing 8-10 games and then a 2nd place playoff, I’d prefer something where the bottom, say, 40 teams are all seeded into groups of 4, and play 3 games, with the winners advancing and maybe a playoff among the second place teams to reduce the number of teams to 36. Then you draw them into 6 Hexagonals, 10 matches each, top 2 advance and a playoff for the last spot among the six 3rd place teams. I don’t think it makes sense to have the likes of Germany and England play Andorra or Liechtenstein. Germany basically had a free pass to advance, while the Belgium/Wales/Czechia group was substantially tougher. The above system would at least ensure that if a team is left out they deserve to be left out.
African qualifying was worse. Teams that won their group were drawn into a winner-take-all two legged playoff. It is plausible (and nearly happened) that a team could win all its group games, then draw both legs of the playoff and be sent home if there were more goals scored in the home leg of their playoff. As it was, two African teams were eliminated on the away goals tiebreaker, and Egypt was sent home after losing on penalty kicks during which fans were pointing laser pointers at the shooters as they were kicking. Brutal.
That said, it’s a bit irrelevant because the next WC will have 48 teams, not 32. If you want to see Africa get more slots, the good news is they’re going from 5.5 to 9.3 (9 full slots plus the interconfederation playoff). Europe is going from 13 to 16.2, so they will have a smaller percentage of teams advance, but it’s less likely that a team like Italy or the Netherlands will be eliminated in qualifying. The downside is that concacaf qualifying will be less exciting as probably 5 teams will advance (starting in 2030, if they keep the 48 team format), but at least the US shouldn’t see another disaster like 2018.
Yes, Europe is still definitely underrepresented by quality alone. AND, they also have a flawed qualification process, IMO.
13 of the top 20 teams in the world are UEFA. And yet, they only get 13 of 32 spots.
I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing for soccer. It's good to boost interest amongst other continents by providing more access.
It's akin to giving low-majors auto bids to the NCAA tourney. Are those teams better than P5 teams that barely missed the cut? Definitely not. Is it a "better"/more interesting/more inclusive tournament with the auto-bids? Probably.
"all other regions are Power 5"?
March 30th, 2022 at 11:43 PM ^
Getting on a plane to Qatar doesn't sound like a great prize.
Among the many, many awful things that FIFA has done, putting a World Cup in freaking Qatar might be the worst.
I would have to agree and the use of slavery that was used to build the stadiums. It would be interesting though to see these two billion dollar stadiums in person. They've developed air conditioning units for the open stadiums where it will be 135 outside of the them and 65° on the field. One of the richest countries in the world is pulling out all the stops.
I don't think they did air condition them. Which is why the World Cup will start in late November, not this summer. The championship is December 18th. At least it'll be cooler.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:16 AM ^
Late November? Probably makes sense and the World Cup is a great event but....I'm hoping my sports attention will be elsewhere at that time of the year.
Not implying that the world's sporting events should revolve around American football. The 2020 Olympics happened during the hottest time of the year in Japan so as to not conflict with NBC's coverage of the NFL, and it was a grind on the athletes. It's just kind of a personal bummer because I usually enjoy the world cup and will not be paying much attention this time around.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:55 AM ^
The World Cup has games every single day and the NFL has 90% of their games on Sundays. Sounds like you just like to complain.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:13 PM ^
In the summer I'd probably get into it and make time to watch a few WC matches, mostly involving team USA. I won't be doing that this year because I won't go out of my way to watch more than one team at a time, and that team is Michigan. You're rude and should work on that.
NFL on Sunday, College Football on Saturday, basketball and hockey (both pro and college) on any given days / nights. It's a very crowded sports time compared to summer.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:56 AM ^
Agreed. It's a fun summer diversion when there's not much else going on. Late Nov-Dec is a very crowded sports time not to mention multiple US holidays happening. Very weird timing.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:38 AM ^
In late November/early December in Qatar the average high is low 80s and average low is 60s. Conditions should be fine.
I don't disagree at all, but I'm sure money played a major part in that (if not the only part), and its not like Qatar isn't oozing in money.
I don't follow soccer like most folks here do, but I feel like I know enough to know that FIFA has never exactly been a gold standard for doing what's right.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:00 PM ^
money played a major part
yeah, that's an understatement: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-06-21/why-qatar-is-a-controversial-venue-for-2022-world-cup-quicktake
Or, put another way: Among the many, many awful ways FIFA has shown they are 100% on the take for bribery, putting a World Cup in freaking Qatar might be the most obvious.
God created FIFA so that even the NCAA would have someone to laugh at.
The plane will be lovely. It's the destination...
It's the richest country per capita in the world. It will be really nice. Just everything is being built with slave labor.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:12 PM ^
Per Capita accounts for total income divided by their citizens, not medium, and it also doesn't account for the very large population of laborer non-citizens who have very few rights and are dirt poor. But I'm sure they'll do their best to show the luxurious side of their country.
March 30th, 2022 at 11:44 PM ^
I knew that the unthinkable was not going to happen but when that 2nd goal went in my b-hole sure tightened up
March 30th, 2022 at 11:55 PM ^
Wait... what are we talking about again?
March 31st, 2022 at 12:01 AM ^
The poster finally consented to anal? Hey, it's a special moment in any relationship.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:28 AM ^
Ahhh, those 3 magical words every women can't wait to hear....
March 31st, 2022 at 12:02 AM ^
silly question... but if the match had gotten out of hand could they not have just forfeited and still qualified?
This is the hard hitting questions I'm here for. Great query, I'd love to know an actual answer.
I found this on a quick google search: "A team sanctioned with a forfeit is considered to have lost the match by 3-0. 2. If the goal difference at the end of the match is greater than three, the result on the pitch is upheld.”
There was some internet chatter about this. I've yet to see it happen. At worst you'll see teams park the bus and play their B lineups.
I think we made half an attempt at winning this game but we couldn't get anything out of the 5,000 set pieces CR gave us. Also fatigue from 3 games in the past week, etc.
No, this is in reference to the fact that a forfeit counts as a 3-0 loss. So in a match that you don't want to lose by 6 or more goals, the last thing you want to do is play your B squad. You either put your best out there to avoid a disaster or you can literally forfeit. The question (a valid one) is whether you could forfeit if you got down let's say 3-0 early. Instead of risking three more goals, can you just walk off the field? And the answer sounds like yes, theoretically they could have.
The hell are you talking about? Clubs regularly play their B squads in inconsequential matches. And as I said, no one will ever try the forfeit in a similar situation because it would lead to outrage and run counter to the competitive nature of virtually everyone on the pitch. Not even the corrupt AF Italians would do this. As I said, a forfeit for similar reasons has never been done.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:17 AM ^
We had the better chances and way more of the ball.
They have Keylor Navas, we have Zack Steffen.
Regarding the starting 11, I’m not a fan of Steffen. Start either one of the other two goalies.
And both goals were on Antonee Robinson.
Let’s hope we are at full strength by Qarar.
Not sure how Steffen ( who was a bit banged up) could be blamed for either goal. Antonee Robinson and Walker Zimmerman were generally responsible for the defensive lapses and goals. Meanwhile Reyna continues to really impress.
March 31st, 2022 at 11:00 AM ^
I think you can surely pin the second one on his blunder to come out - probably should not have come out, and if you do you have to punch it and not misplay it the way he did (also had something similiar happen in the Panama game, as well as I want to say the home Costa Rica game (?) that led to a goal - so certainly a trend).
The first goal you can argue that there isn't much he could do with it, but if you watch on replay he is pretty flat footed - ball watching - doesn't seem to be on his toes ready to move. I don't know if that would have made a difference, but you can certainly say he didn't help himself with his actions pre-header.
I would also argue that Tim Howard saves both those goals - or at least the first and doesn't make the mistake that leads to the second. Matt Turner probably saves both, too.
March 31st, 2022 at 12:41 PM ^
Vargas' header on the first goal was a free run struck with power with horrific set piece defending ( Zimmerman and Robinson were clueless ball watchers most of the night) . A nice Corner kick feed that was too far out for Steffen.
Not saying Steffen was perfect or should start but our defense was nowhere near world cup caliber yesterday, especially against set pieces. Our offensive set pieces weren't too good either until Reyna came in. Our defense also must have made a dozen unforced weak passes/turnovers that were JV level.
They got the result but I felt like Pulisic after the match. Meh and later yay!