‘Biggest week of our lives’: USA launch final go for World Cup ticket at Azteca

It’ll be OK in the end. Won’t it?

With three rounds of Concacaf matches remaining, squeezed into only seven days, there is the potential for things to go wrong in a hurry as the US conclude their qualifying campaign for this year’s World Cup.

Of course, they might go right! And they probably will. But there is some negativity bias seared into the American psyche after the shock of 2017, when the US failed to qualify for the 2018 tournament. Bruce Arena’s side needed only a point from their final match against Trinidad and Tobago yet contrived to lose 2-1 as other results went against them.

The most unlikely scenario was the one that transpired. Phrases such as “the odds are very much in the Americans’ favor” no longer contain much comfort value now that, post Trinidad, they can always be answered with: “Yeah, but…”

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The way to cauterize that wound is to qualify for Qatar. Victory in the Azteca Stadium on Thursday could achieve that, depending on results elsewhere, but the Americans have only won once in the thin air of Mexico City, in a friendly in 2012. “Our record here is horrendous,” US head coach Gregg Berhalter conceded in a press conference on Wednesday.

The Americans’ position in the standings reflects the team’s overall performances: decent rather than dominant. It has not been an imperious march towards Qatar, a decisive shift from the previous campaign’s convulsions. That was an unrealistic hope given the rebuilding required under new management and the emergence of Canada as a force.

All but qualified, Canada lead by four points ahead of the US and Mexico, with Panama four points below them and fifth-placed Costa Rica