World Cup 2022 (Soccer)

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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

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      USMNT Ties Canada, Its Second Straight Stumble in Qualifying

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      After settling for disappointing draws in its first two World Cup qualifiers, the U.S. men’s soccer team heads to Honduras in search of answers, and its first victory.NASHVILLE — If every World Cup qualifying campaign is a roller-coaster ride of highs and lows, then the United States men’s soccer team has not yet left the ground.The Americans have played two games in four days to start the final round of their regional qualifying tournament for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, and though they expected to win both matches, they have settled instead for two disappointing draws.These are early days, still. There are 12 games to go. And two points are better than none.Tras las segunda fecha de #WCQ, @miseleccionmx sigue en la cima con paso perfecto, y @fepafut se colocó en el segundo puesto. pic.twitter.com/a8EuFXL9Cw— Concacaf (@Concacaf) September 6, 2021
      But there has been a restless desire within the team and its fan base for an assured start to this qualifying cycle given the disaster of the last one, when the team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup in Russia. This group, which includes young talents employed by some of the world’s best club teams, had hoped to begin the healing process.Instead, there are more questions about the team’s competence, more anxieties about history repeating itself and more desperation to win the next game, which arrives Wednesday night in Honduras.“There’s ups and downs and bumps in the road, and we just have to keep responding when we’re called on,” said Gregg Berhalter, the U.S. coach. “We can do two things. We can feel bad for ourselves or we can continue on with a positive attitude and try to get a positive result in Honduras.”Tajon Buchanan, left, and Canada have as many points (two) as John Brooks and the United States do after two games.Mark Humphrey/Associated PressThe stage was set in many ways for a restorative performance on Sunday night at Nissan Stadium in Nashville. The grass was lush. The home crowd was genteel. The novice players’ nerves were supposedly settled.In other words, none of the excuses Berhalter had tossed around over the weekend to help explain his team’s underwhelming 0-0 tie last Thursday in El Salvador — about the knobbly field of play, the hostile atmosphere, the number of team members playing their first qualifying game — were applicable as the Americans registered another dissatisfying draw, 1-1, in their second game against Canada.The team’s failure to meet the moment left it searching for answers.The Americans looked ungainly passing the ball. They took the scenic route when shortcuts were needed, lumbering around the perimeter of the Canadians’ dense defensive shell. It was a familiar set of problems: copious possession, scant production. The United States kept the ball for 71 percent of the game, but Canada’s sit-back-and-counterattack game plan worked just fine, and the result seemed fair.“We needed much faster ball movement,” Berhalter said. “Everyone could see from the outside, we took way too long on the ball.”He added, “We have to figure out ways to break down a compact defense because I’m sure there’s going to be other teams that come to the United States and do the same thing.”Christian Pulisic, the Americans’ captain and best player, who returned to the lineup after missing the El Salvador game while he recovered from a positive coronavirus test last month, was critical, too — even if it was unclear whether he was targeting the coaching staff, his teammates, himself, or some combination of the three.“I think we need new ideas at times,” he said, adding: “It just felt like we couldn’t break them down. We just need some new solutions. Obviously it wasn’t good enough.”Pulisic went on to suggest that the team could have conducted itself differently after taking the lead early in the second half by making adjustments and perhaps adopting a more defensive mind-set.“I think it’s important in games like this, tough games, to just grind it out and win these games 1-0 at times,” he said.Such pragmatism requires some savvy, and it is unclear how much this team possesses. The squad is populated by intriguing youngsters, many of them technically skilled in ways that subvert longstanding stereotypes about American soccer players. Trophies in two tournaments this summer — the Gold Cup and the Nations League — stoked excitement about what the group could do.But this month the group’s youth, and acknowledged naïveté, have looked like liabilities.“It’s a team sport,” midfielder Tyler Adams said when asked about the players’ strong pedigrees. “It doesn’t matter where we come from. If we don’t go out and do the things we’re good at, we’re just a group of names on a piece of paper.”It has not helped matters that this team has been depleted by a combination of bad luck and indiscretion.Before Sunday’s game, the team announced that Gio Reyna, one of its best attackers, would be out indefinitely with a hamstring injury and that Zack Steffen, Berhalter’s first-choice goalkeeper, would leave the squad, too, after testing positive for the coronavirus.Sergiño Dest left the game with an ankle injury in the first half. Alphonso Davies, right, departed with his own pain in the second.Christopher Hanewinckel/USA Today Sports, via ReutersThe team also announced before kickoff on Sunday that the star midfielder Weston McKennie would miss the game in Nashville after violating the team’s coronavirus policy.“I am sorry for my actions,” he wrote in an Instagram post. “I will be cheering hard for the boys tonight and hope to be back with the team soon.”For McKennie, who tested positive for the virus last October, the indiscretion (which the team declined to detail) hinted at a worrying pattern of behavior. In April, McKennie was suspended by his club team, Juventus, after he hosted a party at his home in Turin that violated a local curfew and needed to be broken up by the police.Berhalter late Sunday night declined to say whether McKennie would be available for Wednesday’s game in Honduras.These bouts of misfortune and personal slip-ups are hard to digest when each game carries so much weight. There is only so much time to get things right, only so many setbacks a team can withstand.“The way we’ve been framing it to the guys is that every game is a final,” Berhalter said. “Fourteen finals, that’s how we have to approach it. So the urgency is always going to be there until we’re mathematically secure with qualifying.”The Americans last month unveiled a marketing slogan — “Only forward.” — that reflected a desire to put their recent failures behind them. But Pulisic on Sunday could not help dwelling on the past, noting that in the last cycle the team had lost its first two matches. Those poor results precipitated the firing of Coach Jurgen Klinsmann.By that standard, the Americans are in better shape now. By any other measure, they are falling worryingly short of expectations. More

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      Brazil-Argentina Match Stopped When Health Officials Storm Field

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      After a disagreement about quarantine rules, a high-profile match was interrupted by government officials seeking to deport four Argentine players.A World Cup qualification game between Brazil and Argentina, South America’s most successful soccer teams, was halted after only a few minutes on Sunday after Brazilian health authorities walked onto the field during play as part of an effort to deport four Argentine players accused of violating coronavirus quarantine regulations.In chaotic scenes in São Paulo, a group of Brazilian public health officials entered the field minutes into the highly anticipated showdown and ordered Argentina’s players off the field as officials from both sides, a small crowd allowed inside the stadium and a global television audience struggled to comprehend just what was taking place.Brazilian Health Authority officials potentially trying to deport @Argentina players Players going back into the tunnel #BRAvsARG #WCQ #CONMEBOL pic.twitter.com/gIENNTjfZz— fuboTV (@fuboTV) September 5, 2021
      At issue was the status of four members of Argentina’s roster, including three starters who play club soccer in England’s Premier League. According to local regulations, foreign travelers who had spent time in Britain in the previous 14 days are required to quarantine upon arrival in Brazil.Officials from a Brazilian health regulator, Anvisa, said in a statement that they had concluded the Argentine players had lied about being in England on forms when they entered Brazil. Two days of meetings had failed to resolve the issue, the agency said, so it sent staff members to the stadium where Brazil and Argentina had taken the field on Sunday afternoon, to seek the players’ “immediate segregation and transportation to the airport.”Argentina arrived in Brazil on Friday morning with four England-based players. All of the players had first traveled to Venezuela, where Argentina played an earlier qualification game last week, before arriving in Brazil three days ago.In images beamed live around the world, health officials and some of the Argentina players were involved in a brief altercation before the team returned to its locker room. The on-field discussions eventually involved officials from both teams and stars like Lionel Messi and Neymar.Brazil’s Neymar and Argentina’s Lionel Messi sought explanations before leaving the field.Amanda Perobelli/ReutersThe match’s referee eventually suspended the game. Once Argentina retreated to its locker room, Brazil’s players waited on the field before beginning an improvised training session using half of the field to entertain the stunned crowd. Meanwhile, a police motorcade prepared to take Argentina’s players away from the stadium.The decision to abandon the game came on a day of drama in World Cup qualifying around the world. In Africa, Morocco’s team had to flee the capital of Guinea, Conakry, after reports of a military coup in the West African nation a day before those squads were to meet in a qualifying match. And in Tennessee, the United States announced that one of its players had tested positive for the coronavirus and a second, the star midfielder Weston McKennie, had been suspended for violating team policy, which McKennie said on Instagram was Covid protocol.The events in Brazil threaten to further damage relations between FIFA, soccer’s governing body and the organization responsible for the World Cup, and Europe’s top clubs and leagues, who have been embroiled in a dispute over the release of players for the qualification games.Several European leagues and teams had already taken unilateral decisions to prevent their players from traveling to South America for World Cup qualifying games this month, complaining that they had no choice because the players would be forced to miss key league games had they done so. Brazil was missing nine players for the Argentina game, and other nations were also hobbled by clubs’ failures to release players.Tottenham and Aston Villa of the Premier League did allow their Argentines to travel, however. Tottenham Hotspur’s Cristian Romero and Giovani Lo Celso were in the starting team in São Paulo, as was Aston Villa goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez. His teammate Emiliano Buendía was a substitute.Goalkeeper Emiliano Martínez of Aston Villa, left, and Tottenham midfielder Giovani Lo Celso, center, were two of the three England-based players in Argentina’s starting lineup against Brazil.Andre Penner/Associated PressThe incident occurred only hours after the Brazilian health regulator Anvisa said four Argentine players must isolate and could not play in the match. The local news media had reported that the players involved failed to report that they had been in Britain, a charge Argentina’s soccer federation denied.It was unclear why Anvisa did not take action before the game, given Argentina’s team had been in the country for three days and because the agency had earlier said that the four England-based Argentina players must isolate and not participate in the games at the stadium.Some of Argentina’s players, including its captain, Messi, lingered in the tunnel area for several minutes after the match was stopped as officials and players alike tried to make sense of the dispute. Eventually, about an hour after play had first been suspended, South America’s regional soccer body, CONMEBOL, announced the game had been abandoned.CONMEBOL noted that the decision to abandon the game was the referee’s, but noted that FIFA had final authority over the matches.“The World Cup qualifiers are a FIFA competition,” CONMEBOL said in a statement posted on Twitter. “All decisions concerning its organization and development are the exclusive power of that institution.”Lionel Scaloni, Argentina’s coach, said in comments posted on the national team’s Twitter page that the team had not at any point been notified that it could not field the British-based players, and he questioned the timing of the health officials’ raid. “We wanted to play the match, the Brazilian players did, too,” he said.Claudio Tapia, the president of Argentina’s soccer federation, disputed the accusation that any of the team’s players had lied about their travel. He said Brazil’s health authorities had approved the rules under which Argentina’s team had traveled to Brazil.“You cannot talk about any lie here because there is health legislation under which all South American tournaments are played,” Tapia said. “The health authorities of each country approved a protocol that we have been fully complying with.”A Brazilian television commentator reached the head of Anvisa during the live broadcast of what should have been the first half of the game. The Anvisa official, Antonio Barra Torres, said the Argentine players had ignored instructions to remain in isolation while awaiting deportation from the country for failing to declare they had been in Britain.“They moved to the stadium, entered the field and there was a sequence of noncompliances,” he said in comments published by Globo.The interim president of Brazil’s soccer federation, Ednaldo Rodrigues, criticized the timing of the decision by health officials, saying the players could have been sent home after it concluded.“I feel sorry for all the sports fans who wanted to watch the game on television,” Rodrigues told Brazil’s SporTV. “With all due respect to Anvisa, they could have resolved this earlier and not waited for the game to start.” More

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      U.S. Ties El Salvador in World Cup Qualifying

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      As a youthful American team took its first step toward the 2022 World Cup, it rued a few missed opportunities.SAN SALVADOR — The formula for success in World Cup qualifying is written in years of hard lessons, hard games and hard nights: Win your home games. Pick up points on the road. Survive and advance.So it should not have a been a terrible disappointment for the United States men’s soccer team on Thursday when it opened the final round of qualifying with a scoreless tie at El Salvador. A point on the road, after all, is better than the alternative.“If you’re not going to win the game,” United States defender Tim Ream said, “then you can’t lose it.”But some points are harder won, and perhaps harder to accept, than others. Fresh off a summer in which it won two cup finals against archrival Mexico, the United States had started Thursday’s match against El Salvador exactly as it had hoped. It produced three excellent scoring chances — by Gio Reyna, Brendan Aaronson and Miles Robinson — in the first 10 minutes and at times displayed the kind of free-flowing, field-stretching ball movement that has made its youth-infused roster the best team in the region again.But El Salvador, in the midst of its own rebuild under the former United States national team player Hugo Pérez, soon found its footing. Backed by a capacity crowd that had begun streaming through the gates as soon as they opened 11 a.m., nine hours before kickoff, La Selecta lacked only the clinical finishing required to cash in the chances created by its deft footwork and incisive runs. Midfielder Alex Roldan came closest to opening the scoring in the 33rd minute, dropping defender DeAndre Yedlin on the left side before curling in a shot that skimmed the crossbar.“There needs to be a calm that sets in after that initial period, where we really start taking over, and we never got that,” United States Coach Gregg Berhalter said. “It turned into too hectic of a game, and we didn’t manage that well.”Tens of thousands of El Salvador fans packed the Estadio Cuscátlan, creating an electric atmosphere.Rodrigo Sura/EPA, via ShutterstockIn the second half, the game drifted inexorably toward a stalemate amid tired legs, wayward passes and a quick succession of American yellow cards. When the final whistle blew, the United States players trudged off, projecting a sense that they could have won, while El Salvador’s basked in the cheers of an adoring crowd that seemed to feel that its team had.In his final prematch comments on Wednesday, Berhalter had called the game an opportunity, a chance to rewrite the team’s destiny right from the start of the final round of qualifying, and to do so even without the star midfielder Christian Pulisic, who skipped the trip as he continued to recover from a bout with the coronavirus.For a few of his teammates, though, it may have felt like an opportunity lost. Berhalter spoke of a lack of connections, of too much individual play and not enough switching of the point of attack. The United States captain, Tyler Adams, pointed out some of the same concerns, but also a need to be “more ruthless” in finishing chances.“It’s our first game,” Adams admitted grudgingly. “We have to take what we can from it.”The Americans’ coach, Gregg Berhalter, expressed frustration at his team’s inability to retain control of the game.Moises Castillo/Associated PressThe Americans will not have long to linger over Thursday night’s result: Two more qualifiers loom in the coming days, against Canada on Sunday in Nashville and against Honduras on Wednesday in San Pedro Sula. The former may present the tougher competitive test, the latter the more dangerous one, mentally and physically, of this compressed window.Those games will mark the first hurried steps of the final round of qualifying, normally an 18-month slog that has been compressed to a seven-month sprint because of pandemic delays and postponements. That means three games in most windows, rather than the usual two, and less time to revel in victories or wallow in defeats. It means injuries and absences like Pulisic’s may prove more problematic, and disappointing results more costly.It means that for a young United States team, whose starting lineup on Thursday had an average age of 23 years and 282 days, there will be no time to look back and wonder how Thursday might have gone differently. Now that it’s over, the Americans will fly home with their hard-won point, their hopes for three more only a few days away. More

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      USMNT Faces El Salvador in World Cup Qualifying

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      Ahead of World Cup qualifying, a young team with a fresh attitude says it is unburdened by the failure of its predecessors to qualify for the tournament.SAN SALVADOR — As drama goes, at least by recent United States World Cup qualifying standards, the news rated a raised eyebrow, not a blaring alarm.Christian Pulisic, still finding his way back to fitness after a positive coronavirus test and 10 days in isolation, had not traveled to El Salvador with his United States teammates on Wednesday, one day before they were to open the final round of qualifying for soccer’s 2022 World Cup. Pulisic would not play in Thursday’s game, the team announced, and neither would goalkeeper Zack Steffen, who was enduring a late-breaking case of back spasms. He had stayed back in Nashville, too, where the United States will return this weekend to face Canada.“We feel like we have a deep team,” Coach Gregg Berhalter said. “Now’s the time to show it.”It was the kind of clipped confidence that has become Berhalter’s signature throughout his coaching career. Losing two starters was not a crisis, but “an opportunity,” he said calmly. Berhalter talks a lot about opportunities. This summer’s Nations League had been an opportunity to prove his best players could go toe to toe with rival Mexico and win, which they did. The Gold Cup that followed had been an opportunity, too, for a different set of U.S. players. The Americans beat Mexico to win that one as well.Christian Pulisic remained in Nashville, where he will train on his own while his teammates face El Salvador on Thursday.Mark Humphrey/Associated PressIt’s a lot easier, Berhalter and his players have found, to talk about opportunities when you’re collecting trophies. For the bulk of the current United States team, though, the eight-team final round of qualifying that begins with three games over the next week is just that: an opportunity to show that a new generation of talents — the current roster’s average age is about 24 — can move away from past disappointments, can rely on new players, can write its own story.“When Greg first came in to the national team, he put a plan in place that I don’t think any national team coach has been willing to take the risk of doing,” midfielder Tyler Adams said. “Basically changing the whole way that the system would work, inside and out, whether it was our tactics, the players that we wanted to have, what certain positions needed to do, the qualities that we needed to have, and basically how we could develop and get better leading up to this point, to our first qualifying game.”He, and they, know there will be stumbles: bad fields, bad weather, bad referees, even bad results. They might come immediately, or they might come in a month or two, but they will probably come. In the last cycle, the United States failed to win a single road qualifier. Then it was the last game, not the first, that had been the biggest opportunity lost.Any assessment of the state of the U.S. team at the start of this qualifying cycle’s final act has to start at the end of the last one: with that crushing loss at Trinidad and Tobago that led the team to miss the World Cup for the first time in a generation.For weeks, Berhalter and his players have been asked about that night. Midfielder Kellyn Acosta’s memory is probably clearer than most — he had entered the match as a second-half substitute and was on the field when his team’s world went dark — but he has learned not to rehash it much in interviews. Midfielder Brendan Aaronson, who was only 16 at the time, struggled to remember if he had seen any of the game live. His teammate Weston McKennie was certain he had not. “I don’t really watch sports,” he said.But the fact that most of the players couldn’t remember the match subtly spoke to something else, something probably more important to them and their coach today: They weren’t there. They weren’t part of it. And they certainly weren’t to blame for it.“I don’t think the group now really sees it as a burden,” McKennie said of the shadow of 2017. “I think it’s more, we’re not really going to focus on what’s happened in the past. Obviously it’s going to be in the back of our heads somewhere, but that’s not going to be our main fuel, our main focus: trying to redeem what happened years ago.“I think right now we’re just trying to create a legacy of our own.”Several of the young stars who could start against El Salvador on Thursday — including Adams, McKennie, Gio Reyna, Josh Sargent and Sergiño Dest — did not make their national team debuts until after the Trinidad defeat. Berhalter wasn’t hired for more than a year after the loss. It was 2019 before he coached his first game.The United States beat Mexico in a cup final in June, then did it again in August. Jack Dempsey/Associated PressNow, though, his team is humming. The summer tournament triumphs gave the players a taste of CONCACAF competition, and of the rough play and hot nights and dubious calls that have often marked World Cup qualifying in the region. And for the first time, the final round will open with three matches in a single window, a clutch of games that should, in theory, favor a Berhalter team that boasts of more depth than the likes of El Salvador, Canada and Honduras.They all know every game matters. For years, the qualifying calculus has been a simple formula: Win your home games and then pick up points on the road. But the new breed is not interested, not really, in how things used to go.“Our mentality is to win all the games we can,” McKennie said. “I don’t think we have a formula where, ‘Let’s win our home games and grab a couple points on the road.’ Our goal is to prove we’re the best in CONCACAF, and I think the only way to do that is to dominate it.”Said Adams: “There’s no Plan B for us. There’s only been a Plan A, and that’s to qualify for the World Cup.” More

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      Premier League Will Not Release Players for World Cup Qualifiers

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      The decision sets up a confrontation with FIFA, which can order the players’ release, and could affect the strength of dozens of national teams.The Premier League said Tuesday that its clubs would not release any players for travel to so-called red list countries during soccer’s September international break, a brazen rejection of protocol that sets up a significant confrontation with the sport’s governing body, FIFA.The decision, a reflection of continuing public health concerns amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, will affect roughly 60 players from the 26 countries currently on the British government’s red list. Residents are warned that they “should not travel” to any of the countries on the list, and those who do face either strict quarantine conditions or outright exclusion if they attempt to return to Britain.The decision to withhold players will affect World Cup qualifying matches for the national teams of more than two dozen countries, including Argentina, Brazil and the rest of South America, and also those from coronavirus hot spots like Egypt, Mexico and Turkey. It also touches 19 of the Premier League’s 20 clubs, potentially affecting players like Liverpool’s Alisson and Roberto Firmino (Brazil) and Mohamed Salah (Egypt); Manchester City’s Brazilian stars Fernandinho, Ederson and Gabriel Jesus; Manchester United’s Uruguayan striker Edinson Cavani; and Colombians like Yerry Mina (Everton) and Davinson Sánchez (Tottenham).Premier League clubs have today reluctantly but unanimously decided not to release players for international matches played in red-list countries next month Full statement: https://t.co/JBl6FuzUNC pic.twitter.com/EJiZaODub1— Premier League (@premierleague) August 24, 2021
      The Premier League said its decision was a result of FIFA not extending a rule that had allowed clubs to hold back players if they were required to quarantine upon their return to their clubs. Forcing teams to release players and then quarantine, sometimes for as long as 10 days when they returned, created a situation that affected league play and fair competition, the clubs and the Premier League have argued.“If required to quarantine on return from red list countries, not only would players’ welfare and fitness be significantly impacted, but they would also be unavailable to prepare for and play in two Premier League match rounds, a UEFA club competition matchday and the third round of the EFL Cup,” the Premier League said in a statement.Even after those quarantine periods, the clubs said, the players would then need more time to regain match fitness.FIFA’s international windows normally allow players to return to their home countries for two games, but the pandemic has left FIFA a compressed window to complete qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup, which will open in Qatar next November.Most of the world’s top leagues and clubs had urged FIFA in a meeting this summer to work with them to find an accommodation to the scheduling crunch, which now will require national teams to play three matches instead of two in each international window.FIFA ignored those entreaties, though, and added two extra days for qualifying matches in September and October. The clubs, and their leagues, were furious, but they face sanctions if they refuse to release their players.That appears to be a risk the Premier League teams are willing to take.“Premier League clubs have always supported their players’ desires to represent their countries — this is a matter of pride for all concerned,” the Premier League’s chief executive, Richard Masters, said in a statement supporting the clubs’ decision. “However, clubs have reluctantly but rightly come to the conclusion that it would be entirely unreasonable to release players under these new circumstances.”The Premier League’s objections are also financial, and competitive. FIFA’s ruling extending the international break will most likely leave clubs in Europe and elsewhere without hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of talent for key early-season games because the new dates — and player travel — would overlap with domestic schedules.“As a governing body, FIFA should be trying to find the best solution for the entire football community,” the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for about 40 top leagues, said in a statement protesting the decision to add days to the international break. “Instead, FIFA has decided to impose the worst possible option with practically no notice. This poses an obvious governance issue which will have to be addressed.”FIFA has rejected the appeals of the clubs and the leagues to find a different solution, saying in a statement related directly to the release of South American players that its schedule allows for adequate rest. “The addition of two days will ensure sufficient rest and preparation time between matches, reflecting the longer travel distances required both to and within South America, thus safeguarding player welfare by mitigating the negative consequences of this more intense schedule, while ensuring fair competition as well as a prompter return to their clubs of the players involved,” FIFA said.FIFA made no immediate comment on the Premier League’s announcement that it would not release players. More

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      Fight Over World Cup Schedule Pits FIFA Against Leagues

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      A dispute about World Cup qualifying games has highlighted the power soccer’s governing body holds over clubs, and how little recourse they have.A meeting was called, discussions were held, and groups representing some of the world’s biggest soccer clubs and leagues were given a chance to have their say.Their concerns were immediate: Extra dates being proposed for qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup would badly affect their operations, they said, with dozens of their players from South America, including Lionel Messi and Neymar, set to miss crucial league games because of their national team commitments.FIFA, world soccer’s governing body, reassured the officials from the clubs and the leagues. Do not worry, the clubs were told, FIFA would consider the needs of all the affected groups before deciding how to squeeze in the extra dates, which were needed to accommodate matches postponed by the pandemic.But in the end, FIFA chose what worked best for FIFA. Ignoring entreaties from clubs and leagues around the world, FIFA and its regional confederation for South America, CONMEBOL, went ahead and added two extra days for qualifying matches in September and October. The clubs, not World Cup organizers, would just have to adjust.The outcome was perhaps the clearest example of the immense power FIFA wields when it comes to directing a sport for which it is the chief governing body and also the organizer of the World Cup, one of the biggest sporting events on the planet. While everyone involved agreed something needed to be done to find a spot for the games, which had been postponed earlier this year because of the coronavirus pandemic, only FIFA had the final say on when they would take place.The rosters of top European clubs like Real Madrid are dotted with South American players.Pablo Morano/ReutersWhile the leagues, clubs and players’ unions are often given a hearing, they had little say in the matter beyond expressing impotent frustration at the outcome. That was what a lobbying group, the World Leagues Forum, did this month when it noted FIFA’s ruling would most likely leave clubs in Europe and elsewhere without hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of talent for key early-season games because the new dates — and player travel — would overlap with domestic schedules.“As a governing body, FIFA should be trying to find the best solution for the entire football community,” read the statement by the World Leagues Forum, an umbrella organization for about 40 top leagues. “Instead, FIFA has decided to impose the worst possible option with practically no notice. This poses an obvious governance issue which will have to be addressed.”The growing tension comes amid a wider discussion about the future of soccer, with FIFA pushing for new competitions and new revenue streams and even evaluating the possibility of staging the World Cup every two years. That discussion, which officially is related to soccer’s calendar for the next decade starting in 2024, is expected to conclude by the end of this year.The talks follow perhaps the most fractious period in modern soccer history, encapsulated by a failed attempt by a group of leading European clubs to form a closed superleague and break away from the century-old structures that bind the game together.While their efforts did not ignite the revolution they had designed — their so-called Super League collapsed in a matter of days — their revolt did highlight the unequal distribution of power in global soccer: While teams and leagues invest billions of dollars in the game, they have little say over how it is run.At present, FIFA has signed so-called memorandums of understanding that provide a framework that allows players, who in the main are trained and compensated by their clubs, to play for their countries. Under the terms of that relationship, clubs are required to release players for national team duty for up to 10 days for each international window.For years, that agreement largely held firm, until the coronavirus changed everything and cut the time available to fit in matches before the World Cup at the end of 2022. Instead of two games and their accompanying travel in each window, national teams now would be scheduled for three.At a meeting on July 27, FIFA, represented by Victor Montagliani, its vice president and the head of the regional body for North and Central America, met with officials representing the leagues and clubs. All agreed that a solution needed to be found in order for South America’s qualifiers — backed up by pandemic-related cancellations — to be completed in time for the World Cup.An official from CONMEBOL, according to notes taken at the meeting reviewed by The New York Times, explained that traveling to and within South America was extremely challenging, and that the confederation required three extra days in September and October to ensure the games could be played safely.Like Brazil and Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia also count on European-based pros to fill out their rosters in qualifying.Andressa Anholete/Getty ImagesA representative for the leagues said that would not be acceptable, since it would mean scores of players would be unavailable for at least one weekend of league play, and perhaps more, because of quarantine requirements upon their return to their clubs. He said the leagues could accommodate one extra day, and suggested that the games be played in a secure bubble to minimize travel. At the same meeting, a representative of the players’ union, FIFPro, reminded FIFA of the health effects on athletes of traveling long distances and playing so many games in quick succession.A few weeks later, on Aug. 7, FIFA announced its decision. In a meeting of its most senior body, the Bureau of the FIFA Council — a group made up of the FIFA president, Gianni Infantino, and the leaders of the six regional confederations — it was decided that the South American qualifiers in September and October would be triple match days — three matches in one international break — and clubs would be required to release players for two additional days. Only UEFA, Europe’s governing body, voted against the plan. Previously, it and CONMEBOL had worked together to oppose some of Infantino’s suggestions.“The addition of two days will ensure sufficient rest and preparation time between matches, reflecting the longer travel distances required both to and within South America, thus safeguarding player welfare by mitigating the negative consequences of this more intense schedule, while ensuring fair competition as well as a prompter return to their clubs of the players involved,” FIFA said in a statement.That hardly mollified the clubs. To make matters worse, FIFA said it had scrapped a regulation that allowed teams whose players faced quarantines upon return to withhold releasing them for national team games.“From a regulatory standpoint, this means that FIFA compels players to play for their national team even if they are restricted afterward from playing for their club for several games,” the leagues said in a letter addressed to the FIFA president. The effect, the leagues said, would be quarantine measures that would result “in the disruption or discontinuation of domestic leagues.”With the first games of the September window just over a week away, leagues and clubs are weighing their options. Under FIFA’s current regulations, they may not have many: They will be sanctioned if they refuse to release their players for the looming international window. The complaint would be brought by national soccer associations that comprise FIFA. The body that would rule on the complaints? FIFA. More

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      Cuban Soccer Is Stocking Up on Overseas Players. Why?

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      Cuba’s soccer team has called up a handful of players who developed outside the country’s sports system for its World Cup qualifying matches, a subtle but potentially significant shift in policy.When its campaign to qualify for the 2022 World Cup begins this week, Cuba will try an approach it has not tried in years: fielding many of its best eligible players.For years, only Cuban players who had contracts with INDER, the country’s governing body for sports, were selected to represent the national team. This month, that will change. Cuba has called in several players who are based abroad — and outside the official Cuban sports system — to play in a set of World Cup qualification matches.That means potential national team debuts for Norwich City wing Onel Hernández, the Spain-based defender Carlos Vázquez Fernández and the San Marino-based forward Joel Apezteguía. It also means a return to the national team after six years away for defender Jorge Luis Corrales.“I didn’t know if I should shout or laugh because there are a lot of conflicting feelings,” said Corrales, who currently plays in a second-tier league in the United States. “The images of many years playing with the national team and all the great moments went through my mind. I think once again participating in those moments will be one of the best experiences I’ve had since arriving here to the United States.”To outside observers, the overseas-based players fall into a category that is difficult to distinguish from Cubans who walked away from national teams during tournaments abroad or defected elsewhere. But there is an important distinction that makes all the difference to Cuban officials: All of them either left the island with their parents as children, or were given permission by the government to go abroad.Corrales, for example, was allowed to visit his father in Miami after the 2015 Gold Cup, a major regional championship, and decided to stay after he was granted a five-year visa. He has since played for several teams in Major League Soccer and the U.S.L. Championship, the second division in the United States, including for his current employer, F.C. Tulsa.Jorge Luis Corrales, left, during his days in Major League Soccer. He is hoping to make his first national team appearance in six years.John Raoux/Associated PressApezteguía is hoping to make his national team debut at age 37. He played in Cuba until he was 24 before leaving to help his father run a bar and restaurant in Spain. After years of laboring in Europe’s smaller leagues (Moldova, Albania and his current home in San Marino are highlights) and hoping to be noticed by Cuban soccer officials, the call finally came.Hernández, 28, left Cuba when he was a child to move to Germany. He started his professional career in the German second division before moving to Norwich City, which he helped earn promotion to the Premier League in 2019. That summer, he became the first Cuban to play in the Premier League. A few months later, in a match against Manchester United, he became the first Cuban to score a goal in it.Hernández had expressed interest in representing his country of birth in the past, even accepting an invitation to train with the national team, but suiting up in an official game still seemed impossible until this month.Vázquez Fernández, a 21-year-old known as CaVaFe, left for Spain with his parents when he was 3. He developed his soccer game there, rising through Atlético Madrid’s academy and training with the first team at times. He has expressed his desire to wear the Cuba jersey for years, but had no timeline in mind.“I knew this first call-up was going to come,” he said. “What I didn’t know if it was going to be sooner or later, in 2028, 2025, 2021, but I knew it was going to happen. I’ve always been positive.”What none of the players is sure about, though, is why the calls are coming now.Cuba has rarely been competitive against regional powers like the United States. It is currently ranked 180th by FIFA, just behind Chad and Puerto Rico, and just above Liechtenstein and Macau.Scott Taetsch/Getty ImagesHernández has had regular contact with Cuba’s manager, Pablo Elier Sánchez, including video chats to get up to speed on the team’s tactics. He and the other players said they felt Sánchez and a handful of other officials had facilitated their call-ups by working for several years to convince soccer and government officials to bring them into the fold.Sánchez addressed the new faces in a brief airport interview upon arrival in Guatemala on Sunday, saying they would “undoubtedly” strengthen his team.“They’re players who are playing in important leagues, first-class leagues in the world,” he said. “They’re going to bring a lot when it comes to the results the team can get.”Cuba has offered no official explanation for its sudden openness to players from outside the national sports system, or if the success of these initial steps might usher in an openness to a prospect that has to date been unthinkable: reinforcing Cuban sports teams with the defectors who represent the elite of the Cuban sporting diaspora, not just soccer players like Osvaldo Alonso and Maikel Chang but potentially baseball stars like José Abreu and Yuli Gurriel.Messages left with Sánchez, federation officials and INDER were not returned.The players are hoping they can make a difference. Apezteguía said it had been difficult to watch Cuba’s national team, ranked 180 of 210 FIFA members, and know he could raise its level of play.“It bothers you a bit because you feel a bit powerless,” he said. “You’re watching it on TV without being able to help or represent your country, fight and give everything on the field. Now that this opportunity is here, we have to think about the present and about this chance we’ve been given.”Cuba’s dream is to see its name called at a World Cup draw again. It has played in only one, in 1938.Kurt Schorrer/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCuba plays both of its first qualification matches in Guatemala, playing the hosts on Wednesday and Curaçao, the favorite to advance to the next round, four days later. But these games could lay the groundwork for a larger Cuban goal: a run at qualifying for an expanded 48-team World Cup in North America in 2026.Even without a concrete answer about the timing of the decision, Cuba’s reinforcements are optimistic this will be a first step toward the nation’s realizing its potential, especially if Cuba-based players are increasingly allowed to go abroad to try their luck in the world’s best leagues.“We have so many kids in Cuba that love football, and they want to live the dream that I lived,” Hernández said. More