SAN JOSE, Costa Rica — US men’s national team coach Gregg Berhalter was comfortable Tuesday at a luxury hotel about 9 miles from the venue of the CONCACAF World Cup qualifier final. Six days earlier he had described the coming week as the most important of his coaching career. Although the team has yet to officially qualify for the 2022 World Cup, no reasonable observer would seriously consider the possibility that the US will not travel to Qatar.
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The United States can lose to Costa Rica by five goals or fewer on Wednesday and still qualify on goal difference. It has not lost a competitive game by six goals or more since 1957, a streak spanning six World Cups, 16 qualifying cycles and several decades in which the sport in the country existed beyond the fringes of public consciousness. At Costa Rica’s national stadium – against a side who have scored just 11 goals in 13 qualifiers and are likely to rest their best players (because nine players have yellow cards ahead of a potential playoff) – USA are big favorites Progress.
So, yes, Berhalter rightly exuded confidence that his team would be officially celebrating soon. It was deserved. At the same time, he was careful not to present the qualification as a foregone conclusion.
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“We don’t take anything for granted,” he said. “It’s that simple. We come here to be aggressive in the game and to win the football game. That is our intention. We won’t be careful. We won’t sit back I won’t play for a draw. We know we’re 90 minutes away from a possible place at the World Cup. Now is not the time to take your foot off the gas.”
CONCACAF table
| gp | PTS | DG | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 – Canada (Q) | 13 | 28 | +17 |
| 2 – United States | 13 | 25 | +13 |
| 3 – Mexico | 13 | 25 | +7 |
| 4 – Costa Rica | 13 | 22 | +3 |
| 5 – Panama | 13 | 18 | -3 |
| 6 – El Salvador | 13 | 10 | -8th |
| 7 – Jamaica | 13 | 8th | -11 |
| 8 – Honduras | 13 | 4 | -18 |
| 1-3 qualify; 4 in the decider | |||
It’s an approach that its players seem to have embraced — or at least that’s how they publicly portrayed it.
“The guys who have been here and on this path before said to us: ‘We thought we qualified at the last World Cup too. The fans thought we had lost too [2-1 to Trinidad and Tobago],'” said midfielder Tyler Adams. “So we’re going into this game with the mentality to win.”
Ever since Berhalter was named USMNT head coach on December 2, 2018, everything he’s done has worked towards this moment. After the team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, the country’s broader sporting public lost confidence. This meant that despite the rise of the most exciting generation of talent the USA men’s team has ever seen – with players breaking through at some of the biggest clubs in the world – the team was still appropriately treated to jokes about reaching the biggest stage in football .
Oddly enough, this team dealt with both rising and falling expectations, depending on your perspective. It’s a strange place to exist. “The weight [of not qualifying] took over,” said striker Timothy Weah. “I wasn’t in that group but the media categorized us as the golden generation.”
While this term “golden generation” hasn’t been universally accepted, it’s hard not to look positively at what this group of gamers may ultimately be.
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Qualifying wasn’t perfect. Had the team picked up a point en route, they would have needed a result in San Jose – a place where the score is always 0-9-2 in World Cup qualifiers – to secure an automatic passage to Qatar.
After winning the CONCACAF Nations League and the Gold Cup in the summer, the team started September’s qualification with great confidence. Maybe cocky. It quickly learned that winning games in these competitions on home soil doesn’t compare to the toughness you play on the road in qualifying. A draw in El Salvador in the opening game set negative tones.
“It’s one of those things where I look back on it and you’re like, ‘Maybe we were a little bit naïve in a sense,'” Adams said. “There are some people on our team who have gone through this qualifying process, but I don’t think they could really put into words or emphasize the difference that a World Cup qualifying process makes.
“It’s good to be in the position we’re in now and to say to ourselves, ‘Yeah, that was very, very difficult.’ With one game left we need to take care of business but I think we’re happy with the way the group is developing and the direction we’re going.”
1:49
Herculez Gomez and Sebastian Salazar discuss Christian Pulisic’s performance in USMNT’s 5-1 win over Panama.
Hiccups should have been expected. Twice during qualifying, Berhalter fielded the youngest-ever starting XI for a World Cup qualifier and the current squad includes 13 players aged 24 or under.
“It’s amazing to see them grow, see them progress and see them grow here as a group and gain experience and what’s to come with the club,” said Berhalter. “It’s a really good group of guys to work with. I can’t stress this enough. Hopefully after 90 minutes [Wednesday], we qualify for the World Cup and the boys can enjoy it and look back on their performance and be proud of what they did. No team in the world has played against a team our age and they are doing a great job.”
That youth is why the team’s performance since September has the potential to be less indicative of what to expect in Qatar than what we’ve seen from more established teams around the world. Most key players are at stages in their careers where development – in some cases significant development – can be expected over the next 10 months.
“I think there are some players who might even make a step forward that we don’t even really know about or are just on the sidelines,” said Berhalter.
Berhalter’s complex system wasn’t easy for many players to grasp, but DeAndre Yedlin and Weah both conceded that this is less of a problem now.
“I’m in a place where I’m super comfortable,” Weah said. “I come in, I know the system. I play with guys I’ve played with since – a lot of the guys I’ve played with since I was 13. Confidence is a lot higher when I’m in camp and we just had a really good laugh together. I think that shows on the field and this team has an incredible amount of swagger.
Weah and Adams first played together in the US youth national team system at the under-13 level. Early on, Weah says, the coaches in the program – with current El Salvador coach Hugo Perez being one of the first – were instilled that they were being developed to help the entire national team reach the World Cup.
“We’ve always talked about the day we could qualify and be among the top dogs,” Weah said. “We’re here right now and it’s a great experience to have with my brothers.”