Will we enjoy the ride regardless? Probably not. Will it at least be over by next week? Potentially no.
Plus, players like Tyler Adams, Tim Weah, and Zack Steffen are all one yellow card away from being suspended from the team’s next game. Add it all up, and you have a lot of people,, suggesting the smartest approach is to field a team of backups in Mexico and concentrate on the next two.
It would be easier to stomach that kind of squad rotation if the USMNT’s depth had proved to be the strength we expected. Instead, the team has looked poor when it has benched its starters, usually for the second of three games.
The question is whether they have the firepower to pull themselves back into a game if they fall behind early, as they did in that demoralizing 2-0 loss to Canada. Eleven games into qualifying, the team still has no idea who its best center forward is. Nineteen-year-old Ricardo Pepi’s meteoric rise faded just as quickly. He hasn’t scored a goal for club or country since moving to Germany’s FC Augsburg in January, though he remains the USMNT’s leading scorer in qualifying with three goals.
He’ll hopefully have help on offense. Gio Reyna, whose recovery from an injury suffered in the very first qualifier has been lengthy and arduous, started and went 90 minutes for Borussia Dortmund on Sunday, raising the hopes that he might be available for more than a late