Uh oh…USA is toast.
- Thread starter Fk_Pitt
- Start date
Why I love EPL soccer. I can watch the games!! Sadly I’ll probably be asleep by 10pm Thursday night.
as far as a rundown on what we need, I’ll leave that up to someone else. There are people who I respect who are still extremely confident and not worried at all that we will qualify.
essentially need a result (win or tie) away at two places we’ve never won, and a win at home vs Panama.
4 out of 9 points in the window should do it. But the home match vs Panama is the most critical 3pt need.
I'm shocked Mexico is on real TV. I totally expected that an CR to be stream-only
Originally when they announced the deal between CBS and the other CONCACAF teams for the rights to their home games in the US Mexico was not a part of that deal. Mexico was supposed to be staying with ESPN for their English language rights in the US. And then somewhere along the line something happened that changed all that.
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anon_4dfwm2pijbr0a
Guest
If they get 4pts in this window they should finish top 3. If they fail, they can still qualify by finishing 4th and will play New Zealand in a qualifier which they should win. But…as we well know there are never guarantees that we will win that match, and if they do, I believe they’ll have a tougher draw in Qatar taking that route. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong.
I don't think that they have decided how the draw is going to go yet. Or at least if they have, they haven't announced it yet. They typically do not just put the highest seeded team in the first pot, the second highest group in the second pot, and so on. Frequently they do something like top seven teams plus the host in pot one, all European teams in pot two, pot three might have all CONCACAF and Asian teams, pot four might have all the African teams and South American teams.
If they do it that way then it really won't make any difference whether the US finishes first or fourth (and win the playoff) in the group, because the US is not going to be in the top seven in the FIFA rankings so they won't be in pot one. They'll be in whatever pot all the CONCACAF teams get put into.
OK, it looks like last time they did put the teams in the pot based on their FIFA rankings. Which if they do it that way again might not make any difference which position the US finishes in, although obviously winning more games could help and losing more games could hurt. The US is currently 13th in the FIFA rankings, so perhaps several losses could drop them down from potentially being in pot two to being in pot three. If they do it that way again.
On the other hand, the time before that they put the teams in the post based on federations. Top seven plus hosts (Brazil) in pot one, African and South American teams in pot two, Asia and CONCACAF teams in pot three, European teams in pot four (Italy was drawn to move to pot two to equal out the numbers). If they do that then it makes no difference what results the US gets, only that the qualify.
On the other hand, the time before that they put the teams in the post based on federations. Top seven plus hosts (Brazil) in pot one, African and South American teams in pot two, Asia and CONCACAF teams in pot three, European teams in pot four (Italy was drawn to move to pot two to equal out the numbers). If they do that then it makes no difference what results the US gets, only that the qualify.
I don't get this 10PM start time? Really sucks, even 9 would be reasonable. Why in the hell would they start that late.
Well it could be that Mexico City is 2 hours behind us?
now why they like to start their games at 8pm local time instead of 7pm might be a question that SMF can answer. He likes minutia.
At least Reyna is back for the window. If asked whether I’d rather have Aaronson or Reyna, it’s pretty obvious right? We haven’t had him because of his injury issues, and if he’s our player who has more upside than Pulisic, as many have said, then let’s get him in these big games and get some chemistry going.
It's not that I can't stay up to watch until 12, I can watch a SNF game that starts at 8:20 and ends after 12, no problem, it's falling asleep because I get bored waiting for it to start
They are actually sorta doing what they did the last time, with a couple covid/war-related changes. Pot one is going to be the seven highest ranked teams plus the hosts. Pot two is the next eight highest ranked teams. Pot three is the next highest ranked teams. And then the rest in pot four.
But here's the the covid/war part of it. Because of covid the draw is going to happen before the last playoff games. And because of the war the Ukraine game/games that were supposed to be played in this window have been postponed, so that team won't be determined either. Rather than wait until the results of those final matches in June, they are plowing ahead with the draw next Friday. But since they don't know who those last three teams are going to be, they are just putting those three teams in pot four.
So what you were talking about yesterday is going to happen. It will be much, much better for the US to finish in the top three. If they do that they are going to almost certainly be in pot two. If they are forced into the playoff and win that they are going to almost certainly be in pot four.
So, for example, the US might end up having to play someone like the Netherlands instead of someone like South Korea in the group stage. And that would be bad. Really, really bad.
So it had me wondering about Canada. I don’t know if there will be a difference for them and what pot they go in? They go to Panama in the last game, and suppose we need them to win or tie Panama, will they even have anything to play for? Is there a difference between first and 2nd? Pot 2 and 3?
Nope. The only possible difference would be if winning the game might move them up in the rankings or losing the game might drop them down and they happened to be right at the cutoff for one pot or the other.
They are currently ranked 33. So there is no way they could possibly make it to pot two. But it might be possible that winning or losing some of these last games could make the difference between pot three and pot four. For instance they are right in between Nigeria and Egypt in the rankings. Clearly the results of those teams' games in this next window will decide which order then end up in for the final draw, any of them could easily end up ranked higher or lower than the others.
