When Does the Us Mens National Team Play Again
Republic of costa rica ii, United states 0
U.S. Seals Its Render to Globe Loving cup
Five years after a calamitous nighttime toll the U.S. men a World Cup place, a new generation took the field in Republic of costa rica and claimed a berth in the tournament.
SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — It was non quite spring break, but the The states men'due south soccer squad traveled to Republic of costa rica this week carrying all the stress and psychological burden of 2nd-semester college seniors.
The hardest piece of work, afterward all, was over. All that was required of the players in the final match of the Earth Loving cup qualification competition was the bare minimum: By merely avoiding a six-goal loss in their game on Wed at Costa rica — a arrears they had not registered in a competitive match in 65 years — they would claim a ticket to the Globe Cup later this year in Qatar.
Long-shot disasters, though, are no abstract peril for the American men. Five years ago, they traveled to Trinidad in similarly sunny circumstances and, after a confluence of improbable events, failed to qualify for the 2018 World Loving cup. That fiasco has dogged the team every solar day since.
On Wednesday nighttime, so, came some redemption. In the 14th and final game of their qualifying entrada, in front of a lively sellout crowd in San José, the U.s.a. strolled to a ii-0 loss to Costa rica that was more than than sufficient to clinch a berth at the 2022 Globe Loving cup.
The Americans' relief and satisfaction was clear at the terminal whistle, every bit the players and coaches hugged and high-fived on the field. They had non needed to win, after all, simply merely avoid a lopsided defeat.
"The team'southward ecstatic, actually excited to be qualified for the World Cup," Coach Gregg Berhalter said. "Qualifying is a grind, and we did it."
The U.S. started the day in second identify in the regional standings for Northward America, Central America and the Caribbean. Costa Rica was three points behind, in fourth. The Americans, then, could lose, simply every bit long as they maintained their massive pb over the Costa Ricans in goal differential, which is the get-go tiebreaker, they were notwithstanding assured one of the automatic qualification spots.
Canada and Mexico volition bring together the Americans in Qatar, having claimed the other 2 automatic places from the region, just Costa Rica yet has a chance to get in through a playoff in June against New Zealand. The team had seemed to recognize the long odds of moving upward to 3rd in the standings on Wednesday and planned accordingly: It rested several regulars who had earned yellow cards earlier in the tournament, ensuring they would not pick up another on Wednesday and exist suspended for the summer playoff.
But the fans barely seemed to mind, filling the national stadium to bounciness and sing in the festive atmosphere. When Juan Pablo Vargas scored in the 51st minute, they let out booming, commonage shouts, every bit if a trophy had been on the line. When Anthony Contreras doubled Costa Rica's lead in the 59th, they popped to their feet and chanted "Si se puede!" ("Yes, we can!")
Paradigm
The American team will shortly learn more nigh what and who awaits in its next meaningful matches: Berhalter was preparing to wing to Doha after the friction match for Fri'south Globe Cup depict, which will make up one's mind the competitive groupings for the tournament when it begins in Nov.
For a day, though, he and his squad could enjoy the simple pleasure of simply getting invited again.
The feeling was sweeter considering they were deprived of it five years agone. That immense failure — the team's first absence from the World Cup since 1986 — has felt fresh in the minds of the team and its fans during this qualifying cycle. But the intervening period has been long.
"That was one of the toughest days of my life, and I'll never forget it," said forward Christian Pulisic, one of the few holdovers from the 2017 group. "Now to exist in this position qualified for a World Cup, we're all extremely proud."
He paused.
"This is where I've ever wanted to be, and right now the emotions are a trivial crazy."
The team he had played for then was effectively dismantled after the Trinidad defeat — its coaches fired, many of its players banished from future camps — and pieced together again in carefully measured steps.
A new generation of players was eased into the team but shielded from media scrutiny. Electric current mainstays similar Tyler Adams and Weston McKennie got their beginning important minutes.
The U.S. Soccer Federation elected a new president in early on 2018. That summer, information technology hired Earnie Stewart as the men's team'south full general director, a newly created position. And then, that Dec, afterward more than than a yr with an interim motorbus, the squad hired Berhalter to revitalize the program.
On Wednesday nighttime, Berhalter fielded an essentially full-strength lineup, backing up his pregame annunciation that the U.S. was playing to win. That the Americans never particularly seemed shut to doing so hardly mattered. With every second that ticked off the clock, they felt safer.
The team hesitated at first to gloat in the locker room, still frustrated past its loss. Eventually, feelings of pure joy filtered through the space, and the Champagne and beer began to spray.
"It's a moment to reverberate and exist really proud," said defender Walker Zimmerman, who emerged from the locker room with goggles on his head. "From here on out it's a sprint to the Globe Cup."
Back in September, when the 2022 qualifying entrada finally began subsequently months of coronavirus-related delays, a younger generation was tasked with exorcising the demons of its predecessors. That effort had a stuttering start, the players' pregame boasts about collecting some quick wins brought to world by a scoreless tie in El salvador and some other draw at home confronting Canada. Berhalter admitted this week his players had been "kicked in the teeth" in their get-go few games.
"We were potentially overconfident, not agreement what qualifying was nigh, and we learned that lesson apace," he said. The maturation of his young players would become the predominant plotline of the contest. And the lessons, in that regard, kept coming.
The players coped with a punishingly condensed regional qualifying schedule that, on four occasions, required them to play three games in three cities in a week. They withstood injuries and suspensions at diverse junctures to some of their best players.
They endured, well-nigh the finish line, a commonage gastrointestinal cataclysm, with 30 members of the team and staff bilious from a devastating tum bug later their game last week in Mexico City.
The trials, in sum, were easier to accept in the end because achieved their objective.
"Equally a squad, nosotros've created bonds and chemistry that, to exist honest with you lot, is very, very unlike from a lot of teams I've played in," said Adams, citing the squad's collective youth as a reason for its closeness. "Gregg speaks on the fact that, coming into World Cup qualifying, nosotros really want to rewrite how these American fans view united states of america, non simply through our style of play, but our intensity, our delivery, our conventionalities that we want to accept U.S. Soccer to the adjacent level."
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What comes now? What does that next level look like?
The unglamorous toil of qualifying tends to be forgotten when actual World Cup games beckon on the horizon. The dread can misemploy. The anticipation can build.
The team is filled with young players — in many cases occupying starring roles for distinguished clubs in Europe — whose individual upward trajectories should, in theory, diviner well for the grouping.
"I think we can exercise some damage, homo," Pulisic said. "I think the country will become backside us, and we're going to give information technology everything nosotros've got."
Berhalter pointed out, too, that the coming months provided enough of time for players currently on the fringes of the squad, or ones not involved at all, to make their cases to join the group in Qatar.
But all of that will be sorted out in the months to come. For at present, after a stress-free trip to Costa Rica, they are in — and that is reason enough for them to celebrate.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/30/sports/usmnt-costa-rica-world-cup-qualifying.html
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