U.S. players sprayed celebratory champagne in their locker room then went back onto the field to be with the fans who had waited an hour to celebrate with them. And they had earned it, a 2-0 win over archrival Mexico on Tuesday night that — combined with a Honduras-Panama draw — clinched a World Cup bid.
The Americans had earned the berth and earned the bubbly. But understand this: It’s their seventh straight World Cup. It’s an accomplishment, but they also have made it an expectation. The qualifying campaign, nail-biting as it may be, is preamble. The payoff is nine months from now in Brazil.
“You’re happy. You’re going to enjoy tonight. People are going to have a few beers and stuff like that,’’ Clint Dempsey said after the match. “But the goal is to do well in Brazil.
“You want to qualify for a World Cup and you want to do well. I’ve played in two World Cups. One I didn’t advance out of the group stage and the other we won the group, but lost the next game. It would be nice to do something special in a World Cup, so hopefully we can do that.’’
The nations at the top of soccer’s food chain – which is exactly where coach Jurgen Klinsmann was hired to get the U.S. – are not measured by wins in friendlies or results in qualifiers. They are measured by success in the World Cup.
Sure, big teams have missed the World Cup altogether, such as England in 1994, France in 1990 and ’94 and the Netherlands in 1982, ’86 and ’02. But after reaching the knockout stage in three of their past five trips, the U.S. has reached the point where they expect to qualify and aim for something more.
“Now it’s expected of us, but it’s never a guarantee,’’ goalkeeper Tim Howard said. ““We’re young enough at the moment that the next 6-to-8 months we’re going to grow and get better. … It’s a lot of young guys with some of us old guys. The mix is right and we just need to mature a little bit more and I feel good about our chances. But we’ll see what the draw looks like.’’
Ah, the draw. The 32-team draw can determine a team’s World Cup fate as much as its play, an easy draw laying the path to the knockout stages and placement in the Group of Death frequently resulting in a quick exit for team and coach alike.
The draw will be held Dec. 6, and it is vital the U.S. keeps winning until then. Just as in college football, style points matter. The U.S. has climbed from No. 22 to 19 in the FIFA World Ranking, but Tuesday’s win could vault them toward — or even into — the top 15.
The 32 teams are separated into four pots, with Pot 1 comprising the host and next seven highest-ranked teams, fortunate since Brazil would have landed in that pot anyway. (Think upset-free conference tournaments heading into Selection Sunday). A top 15-ranked U.S., coming off a Round of 16 appearance in the last World Cup, could land in Pot 2.
With a team from each of the four pots picked into each of the eight groups, it’s easy to see the importance of avoiding the third or fourth pot. And with the World Cup clinched with two qualifiers to spare, it’s easy to see the value of being able to plan ahead and fine-tune for the games that will really matter.
“It’s important, and it makes a lot of things easier for us on the Federation’s side to plan things ahead,’’ said Klinsmann. “We can finalize things for Brazil, we can look at friendly games in November, so it’s definitely important.”
But not as important as what will come next summer. After all, Klinsmann’s predecessor Bob Bradley (who has a 6-0 record in qualifying as coach of Egypt) was fired after coaching the U.S. into the knockout stages. The U.S. will be rewarded for what happened Tuesday in Columbus. But they will be remembered — and if they do well, revered — for what happens next summer in Brazil.