USMNT World Cup qualifying is my drug and I have no idea what will happen because Concacaf is a glorious disaster

We pretend the USMNT will be fine, while never shutting up about how hard Concacaf is and it makes no sense

For years, people just assumed the USMNT would qualify for the World Cup. Now it’s obvious to say that was foolish, but even on the morning of October 10, 2017, you would be hard-pressed to find someone outside of Trinidad and Tobago who thought the U.S. would not be going to the World Cup. With just one game separating the Americans from disaster, their ticket to Russia was all but punched.

It’s always been a little weird that the assumption was that the U.S. would make it through qualifying safely considering the primary narrative about qualifying has always been about how hard it is to win in Concacaf.

The pitches would slow the U.S. down. The atmospheres would blow out your ear drums. The fire alarm would mysteriously get pulled in the hotel the night before the game. The referee would decide the game. The shithousing would turn it from soccer to wrestling, acting and all, in a heartbeat.

Even before 2017, history wasn’t as kind to the USMNT as people liked to believe either. The gold standard team that went to the quarterfinals of the 2002 World Cup, where they outplayed Germany (burn in hell, Hugh Dallas), almost got knocked out of qualifying before they even made it to the final round. And that was true in qualifying for the 2014 World Cup too. And the only reason the final match of 2010 World Cup qualifying didn’t determine the Americans’ fate was because Conor Casey played the role of two-goal scoring hero.

And despite it all, the U.S. would have no problem qualifying, nearly everyone continued to preach.

Are things any different now? The difficulty of Concacaf hasn’t changed. Costa Rica is certainly a worse team than they have been over the last decade, but other teams are better. The pitches will still be a mess and the shithousing as Oscar award deserving as ever. The fans will be just as loud, when they’re allowed, and the referees just as unpredictable.

The difference is the Americans are better. Much, much better. And people can talk about how this group of players hasn’t proven it in away matches yet, or how the Nations League and Gold Cup finals were lucky, but nobody can look at this team and say they are not better than they were four years ago, or eight years ago, or, frankly, as long as the U.S. has been fielding a men’s soccer team.

So what matters more? How good the U.S. is or that Concacaf World Cup qualifying is an unpredictable beast that almost without fail puts the Americans on the brink and straight up lit them on fire four years ago?

I don’t know.

Even before not qualifying for the 2018 World Cup, most everything we internalized, knew and said about Concacaf qualifying is that it was an unpredictable mess. Every team struggles to win on the road, and the U.S. hasn’t managed a single one in five years. Pretty much every non-U.S. and Mexico team is better than people tend to give them credit for. And, at some point, every team will at least come close to crashing out of qualifying. These are the only truths from every single World Cup qualifying cycle.

The U.S. is very good, and I’d bet on them qualifying, but will they? They may not. And if they do, it will be prove to have been harder than anyone is predicting. The same is true for Mexico. And that is before taking into account that this is a compressed qualifying schedule with three-match windows and an eight-team final round. Just throw some more variables on top of what Concacaf qualifying normally is, which is a giant mess of variables nobody can really sort out.

One thing I know about this USMNT, though, is that I love a lot of these players. I love the culture of the team. I love that I know they are going to fight their asses off, even when it’s hot and humid and the grass is up to their eyeballs and the referee calls a foul on a player who isn’t even on the team.

And most of all, after four years of USMNT depression and apathy and rebirth, I’m excited to have that miserable feeling back in my stomach. This summer was great and reignited something within me for this team, but there is nothing quite like World Cup qualifying. The nervousness that comes with the uncertainty, and twists, and knowledge in the back of my head that the entire World Cup depends on the U.S. figuring things out in that moment when the game barely resembles soccer.

Let’s ride again. Just as sick, exciting and all-encompassing as it ever was.