USMNT: World Cup qualifiers strange for all involved
The World Cup qualifiers will look very different this time around. But that is no excuse for the USMNT. It is strange for all involved. Like everyone else, they will simply have to adapt.
No one knows how the football calendar will play out over the coming weeks, months and even years. Some leagues are cancelled entirely. Others have been postponed indefinitely. Some will play behind-closed-doors and push back future seasons. Others will squeeze everything in so as not to disrupt the entire schedule.
And to complicate matters further, every league is dependent on the other. The transfer market extends around the world and incorporates the structure of every league. International tournaments, too, play a role here, especially with the 2022 World Cup set to be played in the winter. COVID-19 has laid waste to the football calendar.
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In normal circumstances, the U.S. Men’s National Team would be preparing for the start of their World Cup qualifiers around now. Two years before the World Cup is when The Hexagonal, as it is known, commences, and the USMNT would face off against the five other highest-ranked teams in the CONCACAF region in a round-robin format. This year, everything is up in the air.
With domestic seasons still far from being completed or even understood, The Hex has rightly taken a backseat. Tentative discussions regarding its structure have taken place, but plans are up in the air at present. No one knows how much time will be allocated to international football, how international travel might work with borders around the world either closed entirely or hugely restricted, and what the structure of the competition would be as a result.
Nevertheless, whatever the result of the conversations is, teams will have to adapt, including the USMNT.
“I think as far as The Hex and that coming around, I think all of us will have to (adjust) – it is what it is,” McKennie said in a FOX Soccer segment of Indoor Soccer. “We have to adapt to it, we have to play and we have to be prepared for it as best as we can. I think the coaching staff for the national team, Gregg Berhalter, they’ve had a lot of time and have this whole off time to think of the best ways to get us prepared for it.”
For head coach Berhalter, this was set to be the crucial period of his tenure. He was hired following the USMNT’s humiliation of failing to qualify for the 2018 World Cup. He was tasked with shepherding an exciting crop of young players into senior play. The team is vibrant, raw, untamed, and full of potential, and Berhalter was seen as the ideal man to guide it.
His work would come to a head in The Hex. This was when results had to materialise and the U.S. needed to win. And now Berhalter, like everyone else, is entirely in the dark as to how the most crucial period of his tenure will be structured. It is not an easy situation.
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And yet, this is the same for every other team involved. Mexico, Canada, all of the other CONCACAF hopefuls are facing the same uncertainty. They must all adapt. And whether Berhalter and the USMNT like it or not, that removes any possible excuse.