Berhalter, Gregg

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      For USMNT and Others, World Cup Run Starts With a Sprint

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      The schedule for Qatar is set, but rosters are not. For players in the United States and elsewhere, a few weeks in a camp and a handful of matches could change everything.CINCINNATI — Until a few days ago, Malik Tillman, a 20-year-old midfielder from Nuremberg, Germany, had never stepped foot on American soil.Five and a half months from now, if things go the way he hopes they do, he will be representing the United States at the World Cup in Qatar.As the international soccer world enters a supposedly quiet summer period, with the European season over and most players on an all-too-brief break from their clubs, Tillman’s story offers a compelling counterpoint to any notion that teams will merely hover in holding patterns until the tournament begins in late November.National teams, after all, have only two chances left to gather before departing for the World Cup — a few games this month and a second window of matches in September — and there is a lot to be done. Squads must be assembled. Tactics must be fine-tuned. Players’ dreams will be realized or deferred. Lives will be changed.One of them could be Tillman’s. This week, he completed the switch of his soccer allegiance to the United States, the home country of his father, from Germany, the nation where he was born and where he is a rising prospect at Bayern Munich. His first appearance for the United States could come this week, in a friendly against Morocco (Wednesday) or Uruguay (Sunday).“It took me a lot of time to make the decision, but in the end, I listened to what my heart told me,” said Tillman, who started getting to know his new American teammates at their training camp this week in Cincinnati. “I hope it’s the right decision. I’m happy to be here.”Malik Tillman played for Germany’s youth national teams before announcing plans to switch to the United States last month. His move was approved on Tuesday.Tibor Illyes/EPA, via ShutterstockFor national team coaches around the world, the remaining training camp windows, and the handful of exhibition matches played in them, represent valuable time to implement new ideas and refine the ones that got them to this point.For individual players — like Tillman and others who are on the fringe of their national squads — they are opportunities to make a positive impression, to catch a coach’s eye, to earn his trust.For the teams and their fans, the games may present one final moment, perhaps, to pause and dream. The nerve-racking struggle of qualification is over. The daunting crucible of the World Cup looms. Until November, anything seems possible.Read More on the World CupAmbitious Goals: FIFA has given up on a plan to hold the World Cup every two years. But its president’s plans for the future are bold.Female Referees: Following the selection of three women among the World Cup’s 36 referees, the event in Qatar may be the first edition of the men’s tournament in which a game is refereed by a woman.Golden Sunset: This year’s World Cup will likely be the last for stars like Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo — and a profound watershed for soccer.Senegalese Pride: Aliou Cissé, one of the best soccer coaches in Africa, has given Senegal a new sense of patriotism. Next up: the World Cup.“We don’t want to go into the World Cup thinking we just want to participate,” U.S. midfielder Weston McKennie said. “A good World Cup for anyone is going as far as you can, making it out of the group stage. A perfect World Cup is winning it.“A lot of people say it’s far-fetched for us, but it’s the mentality that we have. We want to compete. We want to win. And we want to get as far as we can.”For Tillman, who played on several of Germany’s youth national teams, the past week has been a whirlwind. He arrived in the United States late Friday night. The next day, in front of his new teammates, he was presented with a cake for his 20th birthday.Gregg Berhalter, the coach of the U.S. men’s national team, who secured Tillman’s commitment only a couple weeks ago, delivered the cake to the player.“Malik’s coming in with a bang, baby,” Berhalter said. “Happy birthday, buddy!”On Tuesday, Christian Pulisic, the team’s best player, was tasked with announcing to the group that Tillman’s switch had been officially approved by FIFA. That sparked another boisterous round of applause from the group.Asked this week for his first impressions of the United States, Tillman smiled.“It’s huge,” he said, drawing laughter from a roomful of reporters. “Germany is kind of small.” Noting the sprawling streets he had seen in Cincinnati, he added: “It’s crazy.”Amid all the extracurricular activity, there were actual training sessions on the field, where Tillman has already impressed his coaches and teammates.“He’s shown a lot of quality in training, very good understanding of the game, very good first touch and awareness around the penalty box,” Berhalter said. “So that’s been great.”Coaches at the club level have tried using Tillman as a striker, and while he has not pushed back too much against their experimentation, he sees himself as a midfielder in the mold of his favorite player, the Manchester United and France star Paul Pogba: confident, fluid, versatile.“In my mind, I’m more of a 10 than a striker because I would say my strength is my vision, and as a striker, you don’t need that in your game because the goal is almost all the time at the back of your body,” Tillman said. “I like to attack the goal, to see the goal in front of me.”Tillman said Berhalter has told him he, too, envisions him as a No. 10, a more creative role currently occupied by the likes of Pulisic, the Americans’ actual No. 10. That was one of the points that persuaded him to switch to the United States, Tillman said.The biggest selling point from Berhalter, though, was telling Tillman he could potentially make a World Cup roster this year — something that would have been impossible with Germany.Of course, outside of a small core of players like Pulisic, McKennie and Tyler Adams, no American player’s place in Qatar is guaranteed. Anything can happen as they fight for spots. Tillman knows that. So do his teammates.On many players’ minds, for instance, was the plight of defender Miles Robinson, who was largely viewed as a lock for the World Cup roster until last month, when he ruptured his left Achilles’ tendon while playing for his club, Atlanta United.Robinson’s injury was a sudden reminder to the American players of their own fragility. Defender Walker Zimmerman said he found himself allowing anxieties about injuries to seep into his mind.“When you’re looking at your goals that are right in front of you, and you’re just always a little bit more hesitant, it’s hard to fight that, but you have to,” Zimmerman said.Aside from worries about injury, players this week also expressed concerns about optimizing their situations with their clubs. For those who have signed, or could sign, with new clubs in the current European off-season, there has been a need to weigh long-term goals against the short-term practicalities of earning immediate playing time in the run-up to the World Cup.Consider Brenden Aaronson, who achieved a personal dream of signing for a Premier League team when he joined Leeds United in May. The move, he acknowledged, means he will have to fight all over again for playing time in a potentially more competitive situation. Sitting on the bench does not augur well for a player’s form.“It’s definitely a risk,” he said, “but it’s a risk I was willing to take.”All three U.S. goalkeepers — Matt Turner, Zack Steffen and Ethan Horvath — could struggle for playing time at their clubs this fall. Turner, above, is moving to Arsenal.Julio Cortez/Associated PressFor now, there are spots to be won up and down the American depth chart.Berhalter, for instance, has no go-to striker. He has not named a starting goalkeeper. And he has said he does not know who his backup left back will be.“I’m not sure the question needs to be answered right now, and the reason why is we have time,” Berhalter said when asked about the goalkeeper position. “I think it’s time to just let all this play out, and that’s the beauty of time in this case.”Players like Tillman and others, though, know the clock is ticking. More

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      World Cup Draw Analysis: First the Picks. Now the Hard Part.

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      Louis van Gaal said it all with just the hint of a playful smile. The Netherlands’ draw for the World Cup was not easy, he said, with his characteristic bluntness, and nor was it lucky. It was, instead, “colorful.” That was a better word. Ecuador’s sunshine yellow, Qatar’s rich maroon, Senegal’s deep green and that blazing Dutch orange: colorful.He tried, as best he could, to hide his delight. He knew, after all, that the dice had fallen for him, and for his team, just as he had predicted — in graphic and not entirely serious terms — that it would. Everyone wanted to draw Qatar, the host and by a gulf the gentlest prospect of the top seeds. Only his team had been chosen.The #FIFAWorldCup groups are set 🤩 We can’t wait! 🏆#FinalDraw pic.twitter.com/uaDfdIvbaZ— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) April 1, 2022
      But van Gaal is too long in the tooth to be fooled. He knows, too, that World Cup draws are not just bombastic and saccharine and filled with time-wasting and content-filling and Idris Elba; they are chimerical, too. They have an oracular quality. Often, they do not mean what they seem to mean at first reading.Consider Spain and Germany, for example, drawn together early on in Group E. Their encounter will mark the end of the tournament’s first week; it is the only time two of the anticipated contenders to win the competition, to be crowned world champion, will meet in the opening phase. Both seemed to have drawn the short straw.A Guide to the 2022 World CupThe 32-team tournament kicks off in Qatar on Nov. 21.F.A.Q.: When will the games take place? Who are the favorites? Will Lionel Messi be there? Our primer answers your questions.The Matchups: The group assignments are set. Here’s a breakdown of the draw and a look at how each country qualified.U.S. Returns: Five years after a calamitous night cost the U.S. a World Cup bid, a new generation claimed a berth in the 2022 tournament.The Host: After a decade of scrutiny and criticism, there is a sense that Qatar will at last get the payoff it always expected for hosting the World Cup.And then the balls kept on rolling and the names kept on coming and it turned out that both had, in fact, landed on their feet. Japan will be no pushover, and whichever of Costa Rica or New Zealand fills out the group will hardly be content to go quietly. But none have the resources or the quality or the pedigree of Spain and Germany, and both will be confident of making it through.Or look at England, which managed to make the semifinals in 2018 — and the final of last summer’s European Championship — by virtue of winning knockout games, in regulation time, against Sweden, a pale Germany and Ukraine.Its good fortune seemed to have held, drawn with Iran, the United States and one of Scotland, Wales and Ukraine, a group far richer in geopolitical intrigue than it is in elite quality.“I prefer putting balls in the net than flowers,” said Dragan Skocic, Iran’s Serbian coach, when asked about meeting the Americans, a reference to the two nations’ exchanging bouquets when they met at the 1998 tournament. “Football transcends the political stuff,” said his American counterpart, Gregg Berhalter.Spain Coach Luis Enrique with his Germany counterpart Hansi Flick. Their teams were drawn into the same group.Kai Pfaffenbach/ReutersBut the group stage draw is not really a draw just for the group stage: It is a road map for the entire tournament, too. If England is to win — as it believes it can, this time, with rather more logic than that of the stopped clock — the incline grows immediately steeper once the knockout stage starts. Senegal, the most complete team Africa has sent to a tournament for more than a decade, may lie in wait in the last 16. Then it could be France, the reigning champion, in the quarterfinals. Whatever lies beyond that may not be immediately relevant.There will, of course, be some teams who are pleased with their fates: France, certainly, should have little trouble with Denmark and Tunisia and one of Peru, Australia and the United Arab Emirates. The two South American contenders, Brazil and Argentina, will be confident, too.Even the United States should not be too displeased. “We have the youngest squad at the World Cup,” Berhalter said. “For us, that’s a benefit. The guys are fearless.” England might be comfortable favorites to win their group, but there is no reason to believe the United States — returning after an eight-year absence — cannot finish second.And there will, of course, be teams who are left to rue their lot. Canada, for example, gracing this stage for the first time since 1986, has a group without a true heavyweight but somehow harder for it: Croatia and Belgium finished second and third four years ago, while Morocco sailed through the arduous process of African qualifying.Ultimately, though, Van Gaal was right: There is no way of knowing, eight months in advance, who has been lucky and who has not, of which is the smooth draw and which the rough. After all the pomp and the circumstance, the video montages and the marketing spiel dressed up as mission statements, all you can say with any certainty is that it will, when it comes, be colorful. More

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      Christian Pulisic Leads U.S. Past Panama and to Brink of World Cup

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      Christian Pulisic led the way with three goals, but the Americans still must go to Costa Rica to guarantee their place in Qatar.The United States men’s soccer team is not in the World Cup, not just yet. There is still one last trip to make, one last job to do, one last game to play.It would be hard, though, for a team to keep the Americans from going to Qatar now. And it would be nearly impossible to persuade them, or anyone else, that — at last — they do not belong back on soccer’s brightest stage.That was the biggest news to emerge from the United States’ 5-1 victory over Panama on Sunday night in Orlando, Fla. Bigger than the four first-half goals they scored against the overwhelmed Panamanians. Bigger than Christian Pulisic’s hat trick and the rested legs, bigger than the padding they’ve added to their goal differential that has made Wednesday’s trip to Costa Rica far less terrifying than it might have been.What’s left to do? The Americans head to Costa Rica knowing they do not even have to win to qualify for the World Cup. Merely avoiding a heavy defeat — a loss by six goals or more — will ensure the Americans will finish with one of the automatic qualifying places from their region, North and Central America and the Caribbean.Canada became the first team from the region to qualify on Sunday, thanks to a 4-0 victory at home over Jamaica, and only Mexico and Costa Rica remain in contention for the other two. (Panama was eliminated with its loss on Sunday night.)The U.S. has a much better goal difference than both Mexico and Costa Rica, however, and that reality — in the event of a tie for the automatic places after Wednesday’s final games — was its own kind of comfort in the glow of Sunday’s rout. What it effectively means is that even a historic defeat for the Americans at Costa Rica would come with a lifeline: a playoff against the Oceania champion in June for a last-gasp place in Qatar.That back door was the least of anyone’s concerns after a performance in Orlando that ranked as the Americans’ best of the seven-month qualifying campaign.“We want to go there and win the game,” United States Coach Gregg Berhalter said. “Just like I’ve been saying in the first two games: We go into each game preparing to win.”The tension that the Americans carried into Sunday’s game — a mix of injuries, illnesses and suspensions melting together with the lingering angst from a failed qualifying run in 2017 — dissipated in a flurry of early goals.Pulisic, a veteran of that last campaign, which ended with him in tears on a muggy field in Trinidad, opened the scoring by converting a penalty kick in the 17th minute. Six minutes later, the lead was two, thanks to a Paul Arriola header, and four minutes after that it was 3-0 after a slotted finish by the surprise starter Jesús Ferreira.Pulisic made it 4-0 during first-half stoppage time, converting a second penalty, and he completed his first national team hat trick with an effortless — for him — finish in the 65th minute. Pulling down a cross with silky control in Panama’s penalty area, he spun in traffic and slipped two defenders to slot home his third goal.“Christian’s a guy who’s been through it before,” Berhalter said later, and anyone who has lived through 2017 knew what he meant. Pulisic had worn the captain’s armband on Sunday, and played like the leader Berhalter needs him to be if the Americans are to close the deal on Wednesday.His only mistake against Panama, it seemed, was an awkward attempt at breakdancing after his second penalty kick and a yellow card for arguing only moments before Berhalter subbed him off. Other key players were soon subbed off, too, the Americans resting weary legs that had delivered a tie at Mexico and a big win in the span of four days, and still had one game to go.A fat goal difference — the Americans’ is plus-13 now, compared with Costa Rica’s plus-3 — will help.Canada became the first Concacaf team to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. Vaughn Ridley/Getty Images“We knew we had to come out on the front foot and getting that goal early set the tone for the whole match,” defender Walker Zimmerman said of the lopsided victory. “Those goals add up, and they’re huge for us.”But a late consolation goal by Panama defender Aníbal Godoy, who was at fault for conceding both penalties in the first half, served as a reminder of how things can still go wrong if Zimmerman and his teammates aren’t careful.In 2017, the Americans had also thrashed Panama in Orlando in their penultimate game. All the team needed to do after that was go to Trinidad and Tobago, which had already been eliminated, and avoid a loss.Instead, the United States got it all wrong, losing by 2-1 as other results around the region went against them. In two stunning hours they went from assuredly in to definitively, and shockingly, out of the World Cup. The margin was more narrow then, but the lesson has stuck with the current team, most of whom — with the notable exception of Pulisic — were not part of the squad back then.“The goal obviously has always been to qualify for the World Cup, and this is just another step in the right direction,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “But at the end of the day we still have another game to play. We haven’t clinched yet.”It is a message he will surely repeat over the next three days, until the job is done, until the ticket is punched, until the United States is finally, officially headed back to the World Cup. More

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      U.S. Ties Mexico, Extending World Cup Wait

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      Fine margins are the hallmark of World Cup qualifying. For the Americans, their rivals and a handful of other teams around the world, Thursday was no different.MEXICO CITY — As the final whistle blared late on Thursday night, Jordan Pefok fell to the grass and covered his face with his hands.Pefok, a striker for the United States men’s soccer team, was tired, to be sure. He and his teammates had just battled Mexico to a 0-0 draw at Estádio Azteca, a commendable result at an altitude that can leave even elite athletes gasping for air.But, more than that, Pefok seemed crestfallen. About 20 minutes earlier he had missed a sterling chance from point-blank range, shanking a shot so wide of an open goal that everyone in the stadium, fans of both sides, gasped in surprise.What made the blunder even harder to believe was that Christian Pulisic, in the first half, had missed a surefire opportunity of his own from an eerily similar spot, whipping his close range shot straight at Mexico’s goalkeeper, even as the whole of the net gaped before him.Either chance could have provided the winning difference in the American’s crucial, third-to-last World Cup qualifying match. How much will the miscues be rued? It will take a few more days to know for sure.But in this way, the night — at the stadium in the Mexican capitol and inside others around the world where simultaneous contests were being played on Thursday — provided more reminders of the fine margins, hidden pitfalls and cosmic plot twists that regularly conspire to make World Cup qualifying cycles so entertaining and so maddening.North Macedonia won at Italy on Thursday to keep its World Cup dream alive. The Italians? They’re out for the second straight World Cup.Carmelo Imbesi/EPA, via ShutterstockItaly produced dozens of chances in its playoff against North Macedonia, but the reigning European champions will miss the World Cup after they failed to score and their guests found a way. Sweden, likewise, is still alive after finding an extra-time winner against the Czech Republic, and Ecuador clinched its place in Qatar despite losing, 3-1 at Paraguay.Uruguay is going to the World Cup after winning at home, but Canada lost and will have to wait at least a few days. The same is now true of Mexico and the United States, too; like Canada’s team, they are close enough to touch a World Cup berth, but also aware it can still slip away.“I’m disappointed I missed a chance, and I would have loved to have won the game,” Pulisic said after his team’s draw at Mexico. “But this is the situation we’re in now, and we’re happy with it.”Luck of course has a way of evening out, and in other ways, the United States was fortunate on Thursday.All week long the players had been asked how they would manage their nerves in the hair-raising atmosphere of the Azteca, where rowdy, capacity crowds can induce claustrophobia in visiting teams. But the stadium they entered Thursday was oddly tame.Capacity in the building was drastically reduced — to 50,000 from 87,000 — as part of an ongoing effort from the Mexican federation to curb persistent offensive chanting from the home team’s fans. The traveling American fans, cloistered as a group in a corner of the upper deck, at times made more noise than their far more numerous counterparts.It was the Americans’ third consecutive draw in World Cup qualifying at the Azteca, a quietly surprising statistic that perhaps paints a picture of a team finding itself increasingly comfortable in its chief rival’s home.Just like the U.S., Hirving Lozano and Mexico were left lamenting missed chances to score.Eduardo Verdugo/Associated PressAlso working in the United States’ favor was an unexpected result in one of the other games: Panama, which began the day in fourth place, managed only a tie at home against Honduras, a team languishing in last place with little left to play for.The Americans will meet Panama in their next match, on Sunday in Orlando, Fla., and Thursday’s scores now mean a win there would put the Americans in a strong position to earn one of the three automatic qualification spots in the region. They close their World Cup qualifying campaign on Wednesday on the road against Costa Rica, which also notched a surprising result, a 1-0 win over first-place Canada, to leapfrog Panama into fourth.“I’m looking forward to getting home and having a good performance,” United States Coach Gregg Berhalter said.Berhalter’s biggest challenge for that game could be managing personnel in his somewhat depleted traveling party. The team was already short-handed by injuries, entering the three-game window missing four important players: right back Sergiño Dest, midfielders Weston McKennie and Brenden Aaronson, and goalkeeper Matt Turner.Then, before the game, the team ruled out defender Reggie Cannon, who tested positive for the coronavirus, and during it another two starters, Timothy Weah and DeAndre Yedlin, picked up yellow cards that ruled them out of the contest on Sunday night. To fill the sudden gaps, Shaq Moore, a defender who plays in Spain’s second division, was quickly called in. He will meet the team in Orlando ahead of Sunday’s game, and more than likely be in the starting lineup when it kicks off.For the available players, the Panama game could represent a punishing turnaround. Many of them, particularly those in the starting lineup against Mexico, were visibly laboring by the end of the match.Afterward, Berhalter praised his players for expending every ounce of energy and in the same breath played down the potential physical consequences for doing so.“We’ll recover,” he said. “There’s plenty of time to recover.”One factor helping the team’s cause will be the re-emergence of attacking midfielder Gio Reyna, who came on as a second-half substitute. The game marked Reyna’s first appearance for the team since September, when he sustained a leg injury that would keep him sidelined for months.Reyna was the player who had supplied the potential assist to Pefok, cushioning the ball cleverly out of midair onto his teammate’s foot, before it was squandered. Reyna became visibly agitated after the miss, holding out his hands in disbelief, staring at Pefok for several seconds after the ball had trickled out of bounds.The gesture may have come across as unseemly, but Reyna moments later delighted the crowd with a dizzying dribbling run, a meandering high-speed journey from back near the American penalty area almost all the way to the Mexican goal during which he beat a half dozen opposing players, some of them multiple times.Berhalter compared the run to the famous solo goal Argentina’s Diego Maradona had scored at the Azteca at the 1986 World Cup.“I had visions of that while Gio was dribbling,” Berhalter said. “Unfortunately he didn’t have an opportunity to finish it off.”In World Cup qualifying, after all, there is often a razor thin line between glory and disappointment. The Americans will hope, in the coming days, they land on the right side of it. More

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      U.S. Faces Mexico With Simple Goal: ‘We Just Have to Qualify’

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      The bitter sting of a missed World Cup shadows a young team nearing the end of its qualifying road. Three games will decide its fate.MEXICO CITY — There is a tendency among professional athletes and coaches, when faced with the hype of high-stakes competition, to undersell the sense of occasion.A big game, they might say, is in fact just another game. Looking ahead at a stretch of daunting contests is futile; better to go one day at a time.But when the United States men’s soccer team gathered this week in preparation for its final three qualification games for the 2022 World Cup, Coach Gregg Berhalter was uncharacteristically blunt with his staff.“This is probably the biggest week of our lives as professional coaches,” Berhalter said he told them. “That’s just honest.”On Thursday in Mexico City, Berhalter and his team embarked on a set of matches — three of them, in three countries — that will determine if they will return to the World Cup for the first time since 2014. It is unlikely the fate of either the United States or Mexico will be decided on Thursday night; results in other games could change the math, injuries and absences have complicated both teams’ plans, and two more matches remain after Thursday, offering either confirmation or a last-ditch lifeline.A place in the world’s biggest sporting event is typically motivation enough. But Berhalter and his players have been burdened with the task of redeeming the failures of their predecessors, of smudging away the memories of 2017, when the team squandered a ticket to the 2018 World Cup in stunning fashion.The current group, the great majority of whom played no role in the failure of five years ago, began the day in second place in their regional qualifying group — a strong position, given that the top three teams earn an automatic spot in the tournament and the fourth-place team gets a chance to make it through a play-in game. But the disaster of Couva, Trinidad, in 2017 means the United States long ago surrendered the privilege of tranquil optimism.After their game against Mexico on Thursday, the Americans will play Panama in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday before traveling to Costa Rica for their final qualifier on Wednesday night.“We just have to qualify — there’s just no other option,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “I think that when you’re in big games, important games, you always have to remember what motivates you and what you’re doing it for. And for us, we’re doing it for all the U.S. fans. We don’t want to let down our nation.”Christian Pulisic, right, is one of the few holdovers from the U.S. team that missed the last World Cup. “We definitely don’t want to go through that again.”Alfredo Estrella/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAll week the American players have repeated the word “responsibility,” the understanding that their fortunes in these games will ripple far outside their group, and well into the future.That remains one of the curious aspects of national soccer teams: their reputations, their standards, their expectations, how people perceive them to play, how people evaluate their characters — these things get passed through generations, even as players and coaches and other personnel change.The same could be said for their traumas. In 2017, the Americans went to Trinidad knowing that a win or a draw would guarantee them a ticket to the World Cup. Instead they lost, and a series of unlikely results in simultaneous matches on the final day left them on the outside looking in for the first time in a generation. The American players finished the night slumped on the field, some of them with tears in their eyes. A few, like the star Christian Pulisic, did not speak publicly about their disappointment for months.Time moves slowly in international soccer. The images and sensations of that night — the heartbreak and disgust and nausea — continue to stalk the program. Adams talked this week about watching that match on his couch at home. He said he spent the ensuing years wondering if he might have sneaked onto the World Cup roster if the team had qualified for Russia.“Hopefully we have all learned from the past that we need to be better,” said midfielder Paul Arriola, one of the few current players who was part of the last qualifying campaign.As the last stage of that effort began Thursday at the Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, the United States and Mexico found themselves in the unusual, uncomfortable position of looking above in the standings and seeing someone else — Canada — in the top spot they have long claimed as their own.Goalkeeper Sean Johnson during a training session at Mexico City’s Azteca Stadium on Wednesday.Eduardo Verdugo/Associated PressMexico is ranked 12th in the world by FIFA. The United States is 13th. Canada is 33rd. But Canada — which was unbeaten against the U.S. and Mexico in qualifying (2-0-2) — has looked to be the most assured, the most dangerous team in the region over these past months, while the two traditional powers have struggled more openly with the highs and lows of the grueling, monthslong competition.The Americans started the process last September with youthful bravado. Never mind that the majority of them had never experienced the stress and strain of World Cup qualifying matches in this region. Midfielder Weston McKennie declared the team would look to “dominate” the tournament. Adams trumpeted their lofty target: “Nine-point week, bottom line,” he said heading in to the team’s first three-game window.Those things did not happen. The team’s first two games were duds, and they finished the first window with five points instead of nine — no reason to panic, but a cold reminder of the challenge that lay ahead. Since then, it has been a learn-on-the-fly process of melding the team’s many raw talents into a coherent group.Berhalter, who has openly marveled at the difficulty of managing such a young team in such a tough circumstance, has gone through a learning process of his own.“When you’re at a club, it’s a building type of thing,” said Berhalter, who coached for almost a decade at the club level before being hired by U.S. Soccer in 2018. “When you’re at a national team, I think it’s a winning type of thing. My mind-set had to change to be much more about winning every game. That’s what we want. That’s obviously what the public wants. Winning also means qualifying.”The urgency of that task was felt most acutely by the people who were on the field four years ago. Pulisic, for instance, was one of the players with tears on his face after the loss in Trinidad.“I’ve been looking forward to it for years now,” he said about washing away the bad taste of that experience. “Of course we use it as motivation. We were extremely upset. And now we want to qualify. We have the opportunity now. We definitely don’t want to go through that again.” More

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      Crunch Time for the U.S. Men’s National Team

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      Crunch Time for the U.S. Men’s National TeamAndrew KehReporting from Mexico City ⚽️The team remembers what happened four and a half years ago. The idea that the United States could miss the 2018 World Cup seemed absurd — until a wild turn of events on the final day of qualifying in its region.Honduras upset Mexico. Panama upset Costa Rica. And the Americans, shockingly, were upset by Trinidad and Tobago, meaning they would sit out their first World Cup since 1986. More

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      World Cup Hangs in Balance for U.S., Mexico and Cristiano Ronaldo

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      A week of high-stakes games will fill out the field for the winter’s World Cup. Not everyone gets to go.This is the week of final chances. The World Cup in Qatar is not quite eight months away, and more than half of the 32 places at the tournament have been taken. That number will increase over the course of the next seven days, as teams from Tunisia to Tahiti compete to join the 15 countries who have already qualified.By the time the draw for the group stage of the finals takes place in Doha on April 1, the picture will still not be complete. Delays to qualifying caused by the pandemic, as well as the compassionate break given to Ukraine after the Russian invasion, mean that the field will only be filled once the last phase of European qualifying, and the two intercontinental playoffs, are completed in June.But for the vast majority of teams, this is the week that will make or break their hopes, that will determine whether the stresses and strains of the last two years have been worthwhile.Canada stands on the verge of ending a 36-year wait to return to the tournament. The Democratic Republic of Congo is 180 minutes away from qualifying for the first time since 1974. And at least one major power, Portugal or Italy, faces the ignominy of missing out. Here’s what is at stake around the world.EuropeCristiano Ronaldo and Portugal will face Turkey on Thursday.Patricia De Melo Moreira/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesAll but three of Europe’s places in Qatar have already been filled, and the vast majority of the continent’s teams likely to be in consideration to win the World Cup — the reigning champion, France, as well as Spain, Germany, Belgium and England — have long since known that they would be in the field.The exceptions are Portugal and Italy, both of whom failed to win their groups and must, therefore, endure two anxiety-inducing playoffs to join the party. Italy takes on North Macedonia and Portugal meets Turkey this week. Should both get through those games, they will play each other for a spot in Qatar, in a game that could be Cristiano Ronaldo’s final international engagement.The other two European playoff groups have been unaffected by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s (belated) ban from global sport means Poland will face either Sweden or the Czech Republic in its playoff on Tuesday; all three had refused to play Russia if FIFA and UEFA did not act.Ukraine’s game with Scotland, meanwhile, has been pushed back until June, meaning Europe’s final qualifier will not be known until the summer. The winner of that game will meet either Wales or Austria.North AmericaCanada can qualify for its first World Cup since 1986 by beating Costa Rica on Thursday.Kamil Krzaczynski/Associated PressThe specter of 2017 is starting to loom large once more for the United States, with the Estadio Nacional in San José standing in for the Ato Boldon Stadium in Couva, Trinidad, and Costa Rica playing the role of Trinidad and Tobago. Gregg Berhalter’s team will have to confront the ghosts of a previous generation if it is to vanquish them.If that seems a little exaggerated — given that the U.S. sits in second place, needing to win only two of its three games to qualify for the World Cup — it is because it is easy to see Berhalter and his young squad having to wait until the very last minute next week to be sure of qualification.The same is not true of Canada, which needs only one win to be sure of a first return to World Cup since 1986, and has the relative comfort blanket of the knowledge that a single point might just about do it. Nor is it the case for Mexico, which also needs two wins, but has a far kinder schedule over the next week than the Americans.The Americans’ problem is that they face three teams — Mexico and Costa Rica on the road, with a home meeting with Panama sandwiched in between — who all harbor their own ambitions of being in Qatar next winter. The U.S. failed, five years ago, when the situation was no less finely poised. A young, promising team must find a way to ensure things turn out different this time.South AmericaEcuador needs a single victory to book its place in Qatar.Martin Mejia/Associated PressOther than the sight of officials from the Brazilian health ministry striding onto the field to extract a handful of quarantine-busting Argentine players last summer, there has been precious little drama for either of South America’s great rivals. Neither Brazil nor Argentina has lost a game; both qualified for Qatar with months to spare.Beneath them, though, the tension is bubbling. Ecuador needs a single win from its remaining two games — either away at Paraguay or home to Argentina — to qualify for its fourth World Cup this century. The continent’s fourth definite slot at the finals, however, is very much still up for grabs.Uruguay is the team currently in possession of the final spot, but it has to face two direct rivals over the next week: fifth-place Peru in Montevideo, followed by a trip to sixth-place Chile. Either of those teams could usurp Diego Alonso’s Uruguay at the last hurdle. Automatic qualification may be just out of reach, but do not rule out Colombia — currently in a disappointing seventh place — staging a late surge for fifth place, and a chance at a side door to Qatar through an intercontinental playoff in June.AfricaSenegal beat Egypt to win the Africa Cup of Nations in February. Now the teams will meet again for a World Cup place.Sunday Alamba/Associated PressJürgen Klopp’s team selection offered a clear illustration of where Mohamed Salah and Sadio Mané’s priorities lie. The Liverpool manager left both players out of his team’s F.A. Cup win against Nottingham Forest last weekend; it was the only way, he said, of making sure he did not inadvertently find himself embroiled in an international scandal.Africa’s final round of qualifying is always unforgiving — five home-and-away knockout ties, with the winner going to the World Cup and the loser left with no recourse and no safety net. But fate, this time, has been almost cruel: Salah’s Egypt has been drawn to face Mané’s Senegal, a replay of February’s Cup of Nations final. One of Liverpool’s forward line is having the winter off.That is not the only appetizing tie. Two of the continent’s traditional heavyweights, Ghana and Nigeria, will face one another, as will Cameroon and Algeria, regarded as the strongest of the African sides before its disappointing display in the Cup of Nations. Morocco will be expected to make it past the Democratic Republic of Congo, while Mali must beat Tunisia to qualify for its first World Cup.AsiaJapan and Saudi Arabia have eyes on two of the final places from Asia.Eugene Hoshiko/Associated PressWith two games to play, both Iran and South Korea have already booked their spots in next week’s World Cup draw, alongside Qatar, which qualified automatically as the host nation. Saudi Arabia and Japan are best-placed to join them, with each realistically needing only one more win to seal its place at the finals.Australia still has a slender hope of overhauling one or the other, but it will need to beat Japan in Sydney on Thursday and the Saudis in Jeddah next week to avoid a playoff, most likely against the United Arab Emirates, for the right to take part in another playoff, against the fifth-place team from South America, this summer.OceaniaQatar’s big moment is still months away, but it is hosting a series of qualifiers for teams from regions like Oceania this week.Noushad Thekkayil/EPA, via ShutterstockEighteen months after it was supposed to start, Oceania’s qualifying process finally got underway in Qatar last week. New Zealand, as expected, promptly secured a place in the semifinals. Papua New Guinea and Fiji will face off on Thursday to decide who joins the All Whites in the final four.Quite who they will play in the knockout rounds remains a mystery. Both Vanuatu and the Cook Islands returned a number of positive Covid tests after arriving in Qatar and have subsequently withdrawn from the tournament. That has left the Solomon Islands and Tahiti as semifinalists by default, left to play a single match to decide their seeding for the next stage.The eventual winner of the most drawn-out qualification process on the planet will still, though, not be sure of a place in the World Cup; it will have to navigate an intercontinental playoff against whoever finishes fourth in North America to get into the field for the finals. More

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      U.S. Beats Honduras In Frigid World Cup Qualifier

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      After losing to Canada, the team recorded its first set piece goal of the qualifying campaign and the star striker Christian Pulisic scored in an appearance off the bench.Perhaps no moment better exemplified the mounting pressure — and its slight alleviation — on the United States men’s national soccer team than the 67th minute on Wednesday. Christian Pulisic, the talented striker who plays for Chelsea, has sputtered and looked frustrated in his recent performances for his country.And against Honduras, on a frigid night in St. Paul, Minn., Pulisic wasn’t even in U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter’s starting lineup. But after he entered the game as a substitute in the 64th minute and knocked in a goal three minutes later, Pulisic calmly ran off with his arms outstretched, then pumped his fist and hugged his teammates.With a commanding 3-0 victory over Honduras to close this World Cup qualifying window, the United States stayed firmly in control of its fate and lightened some — but not all — of the load on its collective shoulders heading into the next set of games in March.By picking up three points in the standings, the United States moved into sole possession of second place — for now, pending the outcome of Mexico’s game against Panama later on Wednesday — in the eight-team qualifying group from North and Central America and the Caribbean that will determine the region’s berths in this year’s World Cup. The top three teams will receive automatic entry to the tournament in Qatar in November.Three days earlier, the United States had made matters more difficult for itself by falling 2-0 to a revived Canada squad in a showdown between the top two teams in the region. After the match, questions resurfaced about the United States’ coaching, tactics and play.But even in brutal cold on Wednesday, the United States looked much different against Honduras, which is last in the qualifying group and had already been eliminated from World Cup contention. The United States scored in ways it hadn’t before and looked more at ease.The United States played its previous two games of this qualifying window in outdoor stadiums in cold places — at home against El Salvador in Columbus, Ohio, last week and on the road against Canada in Hamilton, Ontario, on Sunday — but Wednesday’s game at Allianz Field had the worst conditions.The wind chill was negative 8 degrees Fahrenheit at kickoff but dropped as the game progressed, making it the coldest U.S. home game. U.S. Soccer wanted to not only limit its travel during this qualifying window but also gain an advantage over its Central American rivals.Warmers and hot beverages were provided for both teams. Some players wore balaclavas and gaiters around their necks and, at times, over their faces to keep warm. U.S. goalkeeper Matt Turner wore a muff around his waist to keep his hands warm but removed it only minutes into the game after a referee ran over to talk to him.Because of performance and injuries (Tyler Adams and Chris Richards), Berhalter went with a different lineup on Wednesday, starting, for example, Jordan Morris at forward instead of Pulisic and inserting Kellyn Acosta at midfield. From the start, the United States was in control.In the eighth minute, Weston McKennie headed in an Acosta free kick — the United States’ first set piece goal of this qualifying campaign. It was also only the third time in 11 qualifying matches that the United States had scored in the first half.Then came more goals of that kind: Another free kick by Acosta was knocked in by Walker Zimmerman in the 37th minute and Pulisic scored in the 67th minute off a corner kick by Acosta.After the game, the United States’ attention turned to warming up and its next games in March. Next month, the United States is scheduled for tough road matchups against archrival Mexico (March 24) and Costa Rica (March 30), and will host Panama on March 27. Entering Wednesday, the United States was tied with Mexico, with 18 points, for second place in the qualifying group.Qatar is still very much within the United States’ reach, but not just yet. More