Holy Shit - Trinidad and Tobago just knocked the US out of the World Cup

[malaise]

45. Who roots for England?

Ha! Check this out
https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2017/oct/11/usa-world-cup-2018-qualifying-soccer-football
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The worst defeat in the history of the United States national team, the record will show, played out over an hour and a half on a sweltering weeknight before a few hundred spectators at Ato Boldon Stadium, confines so modest even its namesake questioned why it was chosen for a World Cup qualifier, and ended with the Americans walking off in a soft parade of stunned silence and thousand-yard stares.

But truthfully Tuesday night’s loss to Trinidad & Tobago was a failure years in the making, an outcome undeserving of the surprise it elicited. Not after how the Americans stumbled from the gate in Concacaf’s qualifying hexagonal, prompting the dismissal of Jurgen Klinsmann with a not-insignificant $6.2m golden handshake. Even after a constellation of factors limited the United States to a scant 12 points in the first nine of 10 qualifiers, Bruce Arena’s side needed only a draw against the world’s 99th-ranked team to be virtually certain of securing at least a play-off spot. Instead, a stunningly torpid defeat, paired with Panama’s last-gasp win over Costa Rica, leaves the US out of the World Cup for the first time in 32 years and represents a disastrous setback for the sport’s growth here.
Stubbornness and lack of talent: the factors that doomed USA's World Cup

The Catastrophe at Couva won’t provoke national shame like it would in countries where soccer is a matter of vital public importance, but it’s a devastating blow to the millions who hope the sport will get there one day. The run-up to Tuesday’s critical qualifier was dwarfed in the headlines by America’s two most popular sports, the NFL and college football, and the Major League Baseball playoffs. Which meant the match, broadcast in the United States on a channel that no one gets, scarcely moved the needle until it was over. That’s the thing about rock bottom: you never know you’ve hit it until you’re there.

Somehow this manages to outplumb the previous nadir of France 98, when the US entered on a head of wide-eyed optimism and promising results – the second-round finish at the 1994 World Cup, the semi-final run at 1995 Copa América, a famous win over Brazil in February 1998 – only to be thoroughly outclassed by Germany, eliminated in a politically charged tilt with Iran and brushed aside by Yugoslavia to finish 32nd out of 32 teams.