Welp. What was once thought an impossible outcome has come to pass. US Men's Soccer will not be at this summer's World Cup. I don't have the historical knowledge to make the claim that yesterday was the worst result in US Soccer history but since that seems to be the common theme, let's go with it. Rock bottom. Doomsday has occurred. Where to next? People are coming from all angles questioning the impact on many facets of US Soccer from the future of the sport to development to financial impact. No one really knows, especially at this point, how yesterday's loss will affect US Soccer in the short, medium, and long-term. We have people calling to blow up US Soccer while other are steadfast in the current direction of the sport. In the face of all the arguments being presented, I've constantly found myself with a more conservative lean which even I found surprising. Everyone take a deep breath and let's look at this logically. Point by point. Grab seat. We could be here a while.
What level of impact should 10 qualification matches over almost two years have on how we run the sport?
Listen. We should not lose to Trinidad. We should not collect three points from five away matches. We should be in the World Cup. But we aren't. The sample size of matches is not large enough to mandate an atomic bomb be dropped on US Soccer. International soccer is much different from club football. If you get catch a bad run in club football, you have time and various competitions to salvage results. World Cup qualifying is as cut and dry as possible. You don't perform and you sit your ass down for two years to think about getting ready for the next cycle. It's drastic. This qualification round, the United States had poor to mediocre group performances mixed in with costly individual nightmares. Those individual nightmares can cost you matches and that's what happened. You mix that in with overall mediocrity and you don't qualify. That's it. There will be a lot of players who don't make it back from this and that should be the case. They shouldn't have been put in this position in the first place. All players had bad moments including Pulisic, Bradley, etc but Graham Zusi should not be wearing a US kit in 2016, let alone 2017. Clint Dempsey ran his race. It was run a few years ago. DaMarcus Beasley was a key member of this squad for a large stretch of qualification for crying out loud. That's not good enough. BUT this was ten matches many of which with questionable tactics and player selection. A few key injuries along the way helped to arrive to where we are now. A bunch of seemingly small and inconsequential errors compounded during this qualification to produce this outcome. Fixing these small match errors is only one focus of what needs to be changed though. Players were and will be questioned but so were the managers..
Jurgen Klinsmann? Bruce Arena 2.0? The US manager. Who should it be and does it really matter?
I don't think the manager of the US national team is that important. That's just what I believe. We have seen examples of the most experience managers struggling. We have seen inexperienced managers thrive and make a name. We've seen the opposite of both. Should the next coach be American? Don't care. Should the US Soccer manager be involved in the technical direction of the federation? Probably not. Let's find a manager that can come in just manager the team. That's it. Let's make this as simple as possible. Whether its David Wagner, Caleb Porter, or Jose Mourinho, understand that this will have a marginal impact on the results of our national team at best.
Get the top 50 candidates and pick out of a hat. It will produce as good of a result as any.
Player development and how this result impacts future players?
It won't. That's it. If you were a soccer player, you will remain a soccer player. Don't be stupid. Soccer in America at the youth level is the top played sport and will remain that way for the foreseeable future. Now, how we get the conversion from grassroots to youth to professionals firing on all cylinders is a different question. This is where people have to realize that the US is in its infancy especially in comparison to other nations. The MLS academy system and similar advanced programs are incredibly young in regards to organization and implementation of any plan. US Soccer and the MLS are doing great work to share knowledge and help create an environment where the MLS clubs and other top clubs in the country have the resources to focus intently on their youth academies to foster talent in the country. This will take time. Established academies around the world are 30+ years ahead of the US. This will not happen tomorrow but our clubs are getting stronger in financing and staffing their academies. The professionalization of the academy system will be one of the key factors in helping our men's national team produce better players year in and year out.
Trust the process, Sam Hinkie style.
How will this impact US Soccer financially?
US Soccer will lose money. Although they have sponsors locked in over the long term, there will surely be doomsday clauses that reduce payment based off of this result. Bad. The federation will also lose prize money from not being in the World Cup proper. You are looking at a loss of anywhere from $1 mil to $15 mil based on your level of optimism on how the US would have done if it were in the tournament. Will this hurt a non-profit organization such as US Soccer? Sure. alittle. Will it be a death knell? No. Not by a longshot.
What happens to US Soccer the organization?
People are claiming for Sunil Gulati to be fired. Well, I am sorry to break it to those people but that is not possible. Unfortunately, he would have to be removed by a 2/3 vote by the board that he sits on and after a breach of the federation bylaws. Unfortunately for some, losing to Trinidad does not meet that requirement. Yet for the first time in his tenure, Sunil Gulati will not run unopposed for President in the next election. If we can take anything from FIFA elections of old, incumbents have a pretty solid chance of maintaining their position. Sunil, whether you like him or not, is a big swinging dick in world football. Sitting on the boards of both CONCACAF and FIFA and the lead organizer of the U17 FIFA Men's World Cup currently happening, he is almost undoubtedly in the protected class of world soccer. It would be a minor miracle to see him not as the president of US Soccer moving into the future ESPECIALLY since the vote for the allocation of the next World Cup will come in the next President's tenure. I saw Sunil work the room in Zurich during the Infantino presidential elections. His influence is undoubted. He will bring the event to the US and that's what we all would like, right? We wouldn't have to qualify for that one.
What should happen next?
I don't have the answer. You don't have the answer. US Soccer doesn't have the answer. MLS doesn't have the answer. Everyone has their own opinion on it and all will problem have some aspects of validity. What needs to happen is that US Soccer, MLS, USL, NASL, US Soccer beat writers, and any other person that may have an interest in seeing the US Men's national team get better have to get in a room and talk. Talk for days, weeks, months, years. Figure this shit out as a group. Define all of the interest for all stakeholders and develop a plan to make sure this doesn't happen again. Everyone will point to Germany and what they did in the late 90's and early 2000s. Copy it. Take the best parts. Leave the worst parts. Create parts for America. There should not be a single group left out of this. This is how we fix this or at least put the best foot forward to do so.
There it is. That's all I got. Bring on Qatar. Bring on the Gold Cup. Bring on the U17s. We will be back. Big countries have missed major tournaments before. It's now happened to us in the modern era. Let's pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and move forward.
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