NEW YORK (AP) – The United States could start qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Trinidad, where Americans collapsed the last night three years ago and failed to succeed in the 2018 tournament.
“We know what happened last time, and it may just be an opportunity for us to come out, to start very strong immediately and obviously get revenge there too,” said star striker Christian Pulisic after Wednesday’s draw. “So it would be a very important match.”
The Americans open their 14-game circular with four games next June and close in early 2022 with a difficult streak. They are in Mexico on February 1, 2022, at the height of the Azteca Stadium in Mexico City; He will play at home on March 25, the maximum likely opposite Panama or Curacao, and then finish on March 29 in Costa Rica, where they lost seven consecutive playoffs.
“You have 11 games before that for the organization to get used to betting on those qualifying games and then you have two of the toughest war parts on the outside,” said American coach Gregg Berhalter. “The other way to look at it is that if you can take care of all your business in advance, it can be a very smart position in those games.”
The United States qualified for seven consecutive World Cups before missing the 2018 tournament. The Americans are among the five nations that dock directly in the last round of qualifiers in North America, Central America and the Caribbean, known as octagonals, united across Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Jamaica.
A highly remodeled team is led by Pulisic and can come with goalkeeper Zack Steffen, defenseman Sergio Dest, midfielders Weston McKennie, Tyler Adams and Gio Reyna, and ahead Josh Sargent.
Defenseman Tim Ream recalled the house’s first loss to Mexico, followed by a 4-0 loss in Costa Rica in the last hexagonal and predicted that the new organization will qualify more skillfully. Although he was 30 at the time of the October 2017 loss in Couva, Trinidad, Ream recalled being one of the youngest American players on the bench.
“You look at those boys who are 21, 22 years old and brought young people, exuberance to the team and with young people brings legs, brings energy, brings illusion,” he said. “The first time we didn’t get kicked off on the right foot, obviously at the start of the leaderboard and we caught up. So I think with those guys, we’re looking to be more sensible since the first game. “
The first 3 octagonal nations qualify for the 32-team tournament in Qatar that begins on November 21, 2022, the first World Cup has gone from its classic start to the end of May-June in accommodation to the summer warmth of the region. The fourth-place team qualified for a two-round intercontinental playoff series in June 2022.
Berhalter estimated that 26 or 27 numbers would be sufficient to qualify.
In a draw Wednesday at the FIFA office in Zurich, the United States selected in a bowl to start the winner of the playoffs between the Group A and F Teams, whose most sensible nations are El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago. The opening will take place around June 3, and the Americans will be home about 4 days later in front of the winner of the Group B and E qualifiers, whose most sensitive seed is Canada and Haiti.
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Then, the United States had a difficult game in Honduras around June 11, before the final double window of June in the house opposite Jamaica.
When the ranking resumes around September 3, the United States will win the playoffs between Groups C and D, whose most sensitive seed is Curacao and Panama, then host of Costa Rica. The October Window has a house game opposite to Jamaica and a road game in Jamaica, and the November window has a house game opposite to A/F and a road game in B/E, which can mean a bloodless game in Canada.
The new FIFA window in late January 2022 has a house game opposite Honduras followed until the away game in Mexico, a heartbreaking adventure for players who will be in the middle of their European club season.
European club seasons are expected to end the week of 22-23 May, with the exception of the Europa League final on 26 May and the Champions League final on 29 May. The windows.
CONCACAF used the hexagonal for the last World Cup qualifying circular from 1998 to 2018. This year’s hexagon is scheduled to begin next month and will come with the region’s six most sensitive nations, with Canada without El Salvador by little. Canada would have been one of 30 groups vying for a place in the intercontinental playoffs.
But the coronavirus pandemic led CONCACAF to announce on July 27 a new format that placed the five most sensitive groups in the hex and gave the other 30 nations the chance to compete for 3 places in the final circular. Canada has led six groups ranked in first-run groups that play only one circular robin, with two games in October and November.
The organization’s winners qualify for a two-moment circular in March that determines which organizations will sign up for the octagonal: Winner A plays F, B faces E and C face D.