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The moral of this story is be qualified before the last game when the last game is on the road in CONCACAF.

That was an underwhelming performance. For much of the 1st half the U.S. had the better chances, though they may not have been great chances, but the energy and true attacking threat was not there. As soon as it was 1-0 Ticos it was not even worth watching.

Regardless, this is a good USMNT and they earned it with the draw and point in Azteca. I said then that 1 point was huge, and it was enormously huge. If we had needed a result vs. Costa Rica we would likely be talking about playing New Zealand to get in.

The only road win we had was the early 4-1 vs. Honduras. The USMNT has to find a way to start getting Ws on the road at places like El Salvador, Jamaica, Panama, etc. Really no excuse not to have gotten 3 points instead of 1 or 0 for one of those 3 away games.

Overall a good qualifying campaign, though it started off rocky with 2 points from the first 2 games and 8 total from the first 5 games. They were better when it mattered.

We had chances to beat Canada on the road too. The final table for the octagonal doesn't show it, but I think USA is the best squad in concacaf and has the best chance to make the most noise in Qatar. We weren't killers on the road like you'd hope to see every match for the full 90 and just a couple of mistakes cost us bigly in a couple of matches. Mexico has some greater concerns internally and Canada was really lucky in a couple of their results.

Canada's qualification run was impressive, but that sit and counter play probably won't cut it vs a UEFA WC side in Qatar.

oh no said:

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We had chances to beat Canada on the road too. The final table for the octagonal doesn't show it, but I think USA is the best squad in concacaf and has the best chance to make the most noise in Qatar. We weren't killers on the road like you'd hope to see every match for the full 90 and just a couple of mistakes cost us bigly in a couple of matches. Mexico has some greater concerns internally and Canada was really lucky in a couple of their results.

Canada's qualification run was impressive, but that sit and counter play probably won't cut it vs a UEFA WC side in Qatar.

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Totally agree with your assessment. With that said, Canada may punch over their weight in the WC if their strikers remain in good form. Canada is probably better than half the Pot 3 teams so if they land in Group A they have a real chance to advance .