FIFA Men's World Cup

U.S. Men's National Team begins long journey on quest to reach World Cup

Updated Sep. 1, 2021 8:32 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Trinidad and Tobago traffic isn’t Los Angeles traffic, and the Sir Solomon Hochoy Highway, running down Trinidad’s western coast, is hardly a parking lot on a typical midweek evening.

Yet on Oct. 10, 2017, as the United States fought to avoid a humiliating failure to qualify for the FIFA World Cup, there were far more people traveling those well-lit lanes than the number that bothered to veer off and stop by tiny Ato Boldon Stadium, situated right beside it.

T&T was playing the U.S., and the locals didn’t care. It was supposed to be a non-event. T&T had lost eight straight qualifiers, were long since out of World Cup contention and had nothing to play for. The U.S. needed only a draw to ensure that a difficult campaign, pockmarked by Jurgen Klisnmann’s firing, at least had a positive ending by booking a spot in Russia the following summer.

Only about 1,000 patrons occupied the stands, and most of those either were friends and relatives of the host nation’s players or had some link to the T&T soccer federation. "Nothing to see here" was the general vibe. Until there was.

Even if you’re a very recent soccer fan or an extremely young one, you know the details by now: a 2-1 victory for the home side, Clint Dempsey hitting the woodwork late with a strike that might have saved the Americans, a baby-faced Christian Pulisic sobbing in the arms of the coaching staff at the final whistle, Bruce Arena stepping down as coach, and no U.S. presence at a men’s World Cup for the first time since 1986.

Bruce Arena has resigned as USMNT head coach

USMNT manager Bruce Arena handed in his resignation after the team failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup.

Whenever a team that was expected to reach soccer’s grandest show doesn’t manage to do so, the clock starts ticking, and it is one heck of a long wait — and never more so than this time. Thanks to COVID delays, 47 months have elapsed between arguably American soccer’s darkest hour and this week, which confers the beginning of the chance to set things right.

On Thursday, the qualifying journey toward the 2022 World Cup in Qatar gets underway, and the U.S., with a new-look squad marshaled by Gregg Berhalter, will travel to El Salvador to kick things off.

The previous campaign ended amid a backdrop of local apathy. That certainly won’t be the case this time.

"Going on the road in CONCACAF is still a thing," FOX Sports Soccer Analyst Alexi Lalas told me via telephone this week, referring to the seven overseas trips to Central America, the Caribbean and Canada that the team will undertake. "It is less formidable than it once was, but it is still something new for most of this young and talented group of U.S. players."

Trips to Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and El Salvador mean traveling to nations where soccer runs deep in the blood and where national pride is firmly on the line every time the national team plays. In this region, there is no greater satisfaction to be had than that found in knocking off the U.S.

Think fire alarms mysteriously going off in the team hotel in the middle of the night, various items being hurled from the stands and playing fields in less than pristine condition, and you’re getting the right idea.

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"You need to have a punk ethos about it," Lalas added. "You need to embrace and love the challenge. You are going into a cauldron. Once the players are out there, it doesn’t matter what club team you play for, how many social media followers you have, how much money you make. It is not a place for shrinking violets."

At the beginning of the 2018 campaign, there was a school of thought that the challenges of CONCACAF had greatly diminished. Mexico no longer opted to play its home games against the U.S. in the middle of the afternoon to maximize the discomfort, field conditions were generally better, and with so many players from the region plying their trade overseas, home advantage had apparently lessened.

Then the Americans managed just three points from their five road games, including the infamous night in the Trinidadian suburb of Couva, a record that condemned the team to CONCACAF’s fifth-place spot, not even good enough for an inter-continental playoff.

The day before the Trinidad matchup, Arena claimed that some big-name European teams would struggle if they had to face the rigors of CONCACAF qualifying, an argument that was largely scoffed at by soccer fans. Ultimately, though, his comments were eerily prescient.

Most of the current U.S. squad have come on board in the years since the 2018 failure. Midfielder Kellyn Acosta is one of the few who were involved back then, and he said the difficulties of CONCACAF travel will not serve as an adequate excuse for under-performance.

Doug McIntyre shares his thoughts on the USMNT roster for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers

The U.S. World Cup roster is set, and the most intriguing name on the coaches list is Ricardo Pepi, the 18-year-old FC Dallas striker.

"Regardless of the weather or the field, we’ve got to be up to it," Acosta told reporters this week.

Lalas expects the U.S., coming off a big summer in which it won both the Nations League and the Gold Cup, to have little trouble during qualifying. The group is loaded with talent, though the U.S. team’s top star, Pulisic, did not travel with the squad to El Salvador on Wednesday and will miss the Americans' opening qualifier.

The El Salvador game is followed by a trip home to face Canada on Sunday in Nashville, followed by a road tour to Honduras next Wednesday. Lalas admitted that he would be disappointed with anything less than a seven-point haul from the three games. The top three teams in CONCACAF’s octagonal qualifying round go to the World Cup; the fourth heads to a playoff.

After the tumult of the 2018 campaign, a strong start and a smooth ride would be sincerely welcome. But as we saw last time, in CONCACAF, you just never know.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.