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    USMNT Beats Mexico Behind Two Pulisic Goals

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    The NewsIn the first significant match for either team since the World Cup, the United States soccer team dominated a reeling Mexico, 3-0, in the semifinals of a regional championship tournament on Thursday night in Las Vegas. The victory, on the strength of two goals from the American star Christian Pulisic and another from forward Ricardo Pepi, sent the United States to the final of the tournament, the Concacaf Nations League. The Americans won the inaugural edition of the tournament in 2021.John Locher/Associated PressHard Fouls and a Homophobic ChantThe game was ugly on the field — four red cards, shoving, a torn jersey, a bloody nose — and off it. The referee Iván Barton ended the game in the eighth minute of added time, rather than play the full 12 minutes that had been announced, because of a second instance of homophobic chanting from the crowd.Mexico’s soccer federation, its players and officials from Concacaf, the soccer confederation for North and Central America and the Caribbean, have made many efforts over the years to encourage fans to stop shouting the homophobic slur during games. Mexico has been fined more than a dozen times in a failed effort to stamp out homophobic abuse, which remains a feature of games in Central and South America. Several years ago, Mexico even enlisted its star players to try to persuade fans to stop using it.But as Mexico, which struggled in last year’s World Cup, played poorly again, fans became increasingly restless and chanted the word during a contentious second half. Barton stopped play for the first time in the 90th minute amid the chanting, and Concacaf public service announcements were shown throughout the stadium encouraging fans to stop. When it happened again minutes later, he followed the tournament organizers’ protocol and blew the final whistle to end the lopsided match.“I want to make it very clear,” the United States interim coach B.J. Callaghan told reporters afterward, “it has no place in the game.”What’s Next? U.S. vs. Canada in the final.The United States will play Canada in the Nations League final on Sunday night in Las Vegas. Canada defeated Panama, 2-0, in the other semifinal on Thursday behind goals from Jonathan David and Alphonso Davies.But because of the red cards from the Mexico match, the United States will be without two key players. Midfielder Weston McKennie and defender Sergiño Dest were sent off for pushing Mexican players during testy moments.McKennie was sent off in the 70th minute after a foul on Folarin Balogun sparked a fight. McKennie had his shirt ripped in the fracas.In the 86th minute, Gerardo Arteaga and Dest were both issued red cards after exchanging shoves following a tough challenge near the sideline.The Goals: Two for Pulisic and one for Pepi.Blowing past the Mexican defense most of the game, Pulisic scored his first goal in the 37th minute, collecting a rebound near the top of the penalty area and then dribbling and firing a left-footed shot past Mexico goalkeeper Guillermo Ochoa. Less than two minutes into the second half, Pulisic doubled the lead by firing home a perfectly placed cross from Tim Weah.Pepi made it 3-0 after coolly turning in a low shot after a brilliant individual effort from Dest, who had carved through the Mexican defense and then threaded a through pass to Pepi.The State of Mexico? It’s crisis.The loss, Mexico’s most lopsided defeat against the United States in 23 years, has the team’s new coach, Diego Cocca, in the hot seat already. Cocca took the job in February, after Mexico’s streak of advancing to the knockout stage in the World Cup ended. But only months into the job, he is already facing questions about his future: One Mexican reporter asked him if he planned to resign after Thursday’s loss.“I dream about a process of three and a half years, not four months,” Cocca told reporters in Spanish after the game. More

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      What We Learned About the U.S. In Its Match Against England

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      A feisty 0-0 tie against World Cup contender England gave the U.S. a chance — and perhaps the courage — to advance in the tournament.AL KHOR, Qatar — The chant came from deep in one corner of the stadium, ringing out loud and clear for a few moments before fading back into the general cacophony of the night.“It’s called soc-cer!” the United States fans bellowed at their England counterparts. “It’s called soc-cer!”As the United States has seen its soccer culture develop in recent decades, it has always used the great powers of Europe as a handy measuring stick, a mark of how far it has come and how far it still needs to go. Yet it is England, a country that prefers to call the sport football and definitely believes it is better than the Americans at playing it, that has always served as the reference point that matters most.The evidence is visible across the United States soccer landscape: American fans, old and new, now spend weekend mornings watching matches from England’s Premier League on television. In American soccer stadiums, they borrow liberally from English sports culture, making it their own, refracting it through a U.S. lens, but leaving no question of its DNA. And the best American players still dream of one day going overseas, anywhere at first, but eventually to stardom in Britain’s most storied stadiums.On Friday night, the United States got a rare opportunity to measure the shrinking distance between the countries’ teams, and by most assessments performed admirably, scrapping to a scoreless tie that left the Americans holding their World Cup destiny in their hands.The result — and small moments like the fans’ sassy chant — sent the message that the United States was ascendant and ambitious for more.“There’s a lot of people that obviously thought we were going to get blown out,” said the American midfielder Weston McKennie. “We went into this game, to the outside world, as obvious underdogs. But we didn’t feel like an underdog at all, because we know our capability, we know what we can do, we know what talent and fight and spirit we have.”A Brief Guide to the 2022 World CupCard 1 of 9What is the World Cup? 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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      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

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      U.S. Beats Mexico and Then Rubs It In

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      Christian Pulisic and Weston McKennie scored and the Americans, fueled by a perceived slight, reveled in their third win over their rival this year.CINCINNATI — Michael Jackson’s 1988 song “Man in the Mirror” — a classic tune, but no one’s idea of a rousing sports arena jam — was blaring over the stadium speakers late on Friday night as the U.S. men’s soccer team rollicked and embraced happily on the field.A bit less than half an hour earlier, Christian Pulisic had charged toward the sideline to celebrate the first of the Americans’ goals in their 2-0 victory against Mexico, lifting the front of his No. 10 jersey to reveal the same phrase, “Man in the Mirror,” scrawled in permanent marker on his white undershirt.At that moment, even reasonably well-informed American soccer fans might have been left scratching their heads at the references, struggling to understand what, exactly, was afoot.if you wanna make the world a better place, take a look at yourself then make the change… pic.twitter.com/ST7fa1e3hr— U.S. Soccer MNT (@USMNT) November 13, 2021
      Welcome to the ferociously competitive, wonderfully petty and endlessly amusing rabbit hole of a rivalry between the soccer teams of the United States and Mexico.The feuding neighbors’ World Cup qualifying match on Friday night — an important one, with three points and first place in the group standings up for grabs — had all the hallmarks of a classic: two scintillating goals, two physical altercations, one red card and multiple instances of borderline inscrutable taunting wrapped inside layers of allusion.“We fiercely dislike Mexico’s soccer team,” U.S. Coach Gregg Berhalter said afterward, “and we’re fierce competitors, and we want to win every time we’re on the field.”To understand the Michael Jackson song and the homemade shirt and the Americans’ generally self-satisfied air after the game, one must go back to Tuesday, when Guillermo Ochoa, Mexico’s goalkeeper, suggested in an interview that the United States looked in the mirror and hoped to see Mexico, seemingly implying that the Americans’ wanted to mold themselves as a team in their rivals’ image.On the Richter scale of sports trash talk, the comments barely registered. But the young American team, which has had mixed success in building an identity through the first half of the 14-game qualifying tournament for the 2022 World Cup, seemed happy to run with them anyway, to use them as extra fuel.First came an unprompted response from Berhalter in his news conference the day before the game. He quipped that the Americans’ two wins over Mexico earlier this year had not done enough to win Mexico’s respect. His team would have to do more on Friday, he said. (The American fans had their say, too, booing Ochoa every time he touched the ball on Friday night.)Then came the players’ response on the field. The teams battled through a nervy first half, with goalkeeper Zack Steffen making two athletic saves to keep the Americans even. Then everything — the teams’ attacks, the players’ emotions — bubbled over in the second.Hard fouls and frequent skirmishes revealed the distaste the teams have for one another.Jeff Dean/Associated PressIn the latter of two on-field kerfuffles in the game, Mexico defender Luis Rodriguez menacingly grabbed wing Brendan Aaronson’s face from behind, prompting a long, ugly sequence of arguing among players from both teams. As the teams pushed and shoved, and as three yellow cards were shown, Pulisic was preparing to enter the field as a substitute. When he did, the rough gave way to the sublime.In the 74th minute, forward Timothy Weah received the ball on the right wing and calculated a sequence of dribbles down the edge of the penalty area, measuring out a pocket of space. Upon creating it, he thwacked an inch-perfect cross toward the mouth of the goal, where Pulisic flew in to head it past Ochoa to give the United States a 1-0 lead.It was Pulisic’s first touch of the ball in a competitive match for the United States since September, when he sustained a high ankle sprain during a qualifier in Honduras. As the sellout crowd of 26,000 roared, Pulisic paused to display his “Man in the Mirror” shirt before being mobbed by his teammates.Afterward, he sheepishly batted aside questions about his shirt, framing the episode as a little joke.“I think you guys know the message,” he said. “I don’t need to speak on it too much. It’s not a big thing.”Weston McKennie, center, with Tyler Adams and Christian Pulisic after McKennie’s goal doubled the Americans’ lead in the 85th minute.Julio Cortez/Associated PressWeah was much happier to elucidate. The night before the game, he said, he and defender DeAndre Yedlin asked one of the team’s staff members to draw the shirt for Pulisic to wear during the match.He painted the prank as a matter of pride.“Before the game Mexico was talking a lot of smack, and beating them shuts them up,” Weah said. “We have to continue to win games and continue to beat them, and that’s the only way we’re going to earn their respect.”After Pulisic’s goal, the Americans pressed for a second. When Weston McKennie delivered it in the 85th minute he prompted chants of “Dos a Cero!” — a reference to a famously recurring score line between the teams — from the stands.And after the final whistle, the team’s staff conspired to play “Man in the Mirror” over the loudspeakers to accompany the team’s postgame celebrations as a final, cheeky send-off.It was a comprehensive win for the Americans, who outshot Mexico by 18-8, and it pulled the United States into a tie on points with their archrival at the top of the standings with seven matches to go. The top three finishers in the group qualify automatically for the World Cup next year in Qatar.But more than the points, the young and inexperienced American players may cull more intangible benefits from the experience: a petty slight, a few impish inside jokes, a night of joy and perceived revenge — sports teams have bonded together over far less.“We talked about how we thought they didn’t think they gave us enough respect, and we had to go out and earn it,” Berhalter said. “And I think we went out and earned it today.” More

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      USMNT Beats Honduras in a Crucial World Cup Qualifier

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      Illnesses, injuries and a suspension marred the start of World Cup qualifying. A trip to Honduras offered a chance to right the ship.SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras — For even the most assured players and talented teams, a maiden journey into the heightened drama of the World Cup qualifying tournament in North and Central America can feel like splash of cold water to the face.Here, world rankings have a way of losing their meaning. Club pedigrees and players’ salaries can quickly be forgotten. It is a rude awakening, a rite of passage. And the United States men’s soccer team is experiencing it yet again.Beginning last week, the Americans embarked on a three-game series of qualifying matches over seven days that they hoped would establish a baseline state of confidence for the long path to the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Much of the last week had, instead, left them looking frazzled and unsure.After draws in their first two games — on the road against El Salvador and at home against Canada — the Americans’ game late Wednesday night against Honduras at the spartan Estadio Olímpico Metropolitano represented a final chance to salvage the week. A loss would have sent the team home in the beginnings of a tailspin. A draw would have prolonged the slow boil of anxiety.Instead, they strode off 4-1 winners, a result — delivered by four second-half goals after an abysmal, disjointed first half that felt like the nadir of an awful week — that will provide a kernel of positivity to cultivate in the weeks to come.The most valuable thing the players and their coaches will bring home, then, could be the lessons learned: about the perils of trusting too much in past results; about the precarity of the challenge that remains ahead; and about the fragility of a team’s best-laid plans and ambitions.“It’s a different animal than we’re used to,” Coach Gregg Berhalter said after the game, referring to the qualifying tournament. “So I think that this whole window was great for this group. We really needed that in terms of the eye-opening of what this experience actually is.”Brayan Moya’s diving header in the first half gave Honduras a 1-0 lead on Wednesday night.Moises Castillo/Associated PressThe fear was that they were tiptoeing onto the same path an earlier version of the team traveled three years ago, when the United States fell one point short of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup in Russia, ending a streak of seven straight appearances at the world’s most-watched sporting event. On some level, it seemed irrational: Even with the disappointing results from the first two games, the United States is heavily favored to qualify, perhaps more so after a win that will buoy their mood, and their hopes. But the bad memories of the last cycle remain raw in many people’s minds.“I can see it being, you know, just memories of the past, memories of the last qualifying round coming back,” Berhalter, who was hired after the 2018 World Cup, said of those concerns on Tuesday night. “And people say, ‘Oh, we’re in the same situation.’ I can understand that completely. What I’d say is this is a different group, and we’re focused on winning games, and we’re focused on getting points.”Such talk had not been convincing before Wednesday’s resounding win.Few would go as far as to call the Americans hubristic: The notion of this regional qualifying tournament as a gnarly obstacle course, with challenging factors unique in world soccer, has long been ingrained in the psyche of the team and its fans, and the players over the past week have spoken of the process with all due respect. They know, too, that it will continue with three more qualifiers in October, and two more a month after that.But the lofty standards imposed on the squad, the high expectation and calls for perfection, are in many ways of the teams’ own making.Berhalter said earlier this week that the tournament’s 14 games should be regarded by his players as “14 finals” — effectively labeling the entire slate of games as must-win contests.Christian Pulisic found little space to work, then left with an injury.Gustavo Amador/EPA, via ShutterstockBefore the first game last week, midfielder Tyler Adams laid out the team’s ambitious to-do list: “We’re looking for a nine-point week, bottom line,” said Adams, 22.And Weston McKennie said last week the United States needed to assert its position as the best team in the confederation. “The only way to do that is to dominate it,” he said two days before taking the field for the first World Cup qualifier of his career. “And to dominate, you’ve got to win your games.”These things, for a variety of reasons, did not come true against El Salvador and Canada. And for a half against Honduras, it did not seem as if they ever would. But then the halftime substitute Antonee Robinson pulled his team even three minutes into the second half, and the U.S. started to turn the tide. Ricardo Pepi, an 18-year-old striker from Texas, gave the Americans the lead in the 75th minute, and then set up midfielder Brenden Aaronson, another substitute, for an insurance goal in the 86th.Sebastian Lletget’s finish off a rebound three minutes into injury time closed the scoring, and, at last, restored the team’s smiles.Wins have a way of quieting, if not totally erasing, questions and distractions swirling around a group.On Sunday afternoon, for instance, McKennie was suspended for violating team rules and had to miss the team’s final two games of the week. McKennie said on Instagram before the game against Canada that he had broken Covid protocols.Berhalter said the disciplinary move was for the team’s long-term health. In the short term, it hurt. The suspension deprived the team of one of its best players, and McKennie’s teammates spent the ensuing days awkwardly answering questions about his conduct. World Cup qualifying runs through March, and Berhalter suggested that McKennie, who plays for the Italian powerhouse Juventus, would be back in the picture soon enough.“It’s an open-door policy,” he said. “There will very rarely be a situation where a player would never be allowed back into national team camp. That’s not how we operate.”Yet McKennie’s lapse was only the most high profile of the personnel headaches that have befallen the team since even before it gathered late last month.Timothy Weah, one of the team’s best attackers, never joined the group after hurting his leg while training with his club team in France.Christian Pulisic, the team’s captain and top player, missed the first game while trying to regain his fitness after testing positive for the coronavirus, and then limped out of Wednesday’s win with an ankle injury.Goalkeeper Zach Steffen was ruled out for the first game, and then the rest, first by back spasms, then by a positive coronavirus test.Gio Reyna injured his right hamstring in the first game against El Salvador and was sent back to his German club without taking the field again.Defender Sergiño Dest sprained his right ankle in the game on Sunday and departed, too.These issues made for a particularly complicated situation during a cramped window of games in which Berhalter had made no secret of his plans to rotate his lineup. But they also were just a taste of the ways things can spiral in the unforgiving landscape of World Cup qualifying.“It happens,” said Aaronson, 20, of his team’s simmering turmoil. “You have to get over things. I feel like as a team we just need to get over things.”Pepi scored the Americans’ second goal, giving them the lead, and Brenden Aaronson, right, added the third.Moises Castillo/Associated PressThe next games will arrive fast: Jamaica, Panama and Costa Rica next month, then Mexico and a trip to Jamaica about four weeks later.Before then, the team has some growing up to do. Only six of the 26 players initially called into the squad had any experience in World Cup qualifying. Thirteen of them were 23 years old or younger at the start of training camp. Nine of the starters against El Salvador were appearing in their first World Cup qualifier. (That 10 members of the team are playing for clubs in the European Champions League this year reiterates the level of talent being unfulfilled thus far.)One problem that needed solving as they took the field Wednesday night was finding some scoring: Heading into the Honduras game, the United States had not produced more than one goal in any of its previous six games.They left the field after putting four past Honduras, letting them breathe a collective sigh of relief.“It’s a massive experience that we needed, just to show that with all the adversity we’ve gone through, we’re ready to come back from it,” Robinson said. “Obviously there’s been disappointing times on this trip. But in the end, we’ve ended it on a real high, and now we can attack October with everything we’ve got.” More