WCQ - CONCACAF

World Cup 2022: What Canada’s win means for USMNT’s World Cup hopes

Published Nov. 17, 2021 5:58 p.m. ET

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports Columnist

Editor's note: The 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar begins Nov. 21, 2022, only on FOX networks. All this week, we'll have stories and videos counting down to the one-year-out mark.

Whoa, Canada.

Suddenly, unexpectedly and mightily impressively, our neighbors from north of the border have assembled an excellent men’s soccer team, one that toppled Mexico 2-1 on Tuesday and now sits on top of the CONCACAF regional qualifying group for next year’s World Cup.

As well as being perennially excellent at the game of hockey, making outstanding poutine and producing extremely friendly citizens, Canada has been historically mediocre on the men’s soccer front.

Not anymore. After the U.S. could only draw 1-1 in Jamaica, Canada’s win showed both grit and determination and left the squad as the only undefeated team after eight of 14 qualifying matches.

Long-term, this fresh development could be a really good thing for the United States, setting up a bona fide, next-door rivalry to go with the established entanglement with Mexico.

Right now, though, it has created a problem.

With three of the eight teams in the region’s octagonal final round due to qualify directly for the World Cup in Qatar next year and a fourth bound for a playoff place, it would be wrong to suggest that the U.S. is in a bad position.

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"For the guys to have their heads down because they wanted more is completely natural," U.S. head coach Gregg Berhalter told reporters after the Jamaica result. "What we’ll do is we’ll evaluate. The message to the guys is that we wanted to end in first or second position after this window [of games]. We have two windows left, and that’s where we want to seal qualification."

However, Canada’s surge means there is scarcely any room for error and the potential for more edge-of-the-seat, nail-biting concern, as there was four years ago. Which, you’ll remember, somehow ended with the worst outcome of all — failing to reach the 2018 tournament in Russia.

Currently, Canada leads the way with 16 points, and the U.S. have 15, with Mexico and Panama just behind with 14. With fifth-placed Costa Rica languishing on nine points with six games to go, it is easy to see how, without Canada thrusting itself into the mix, the Americans would probably already be booking their flights to Qatar.

Slipping into a playoff against a team from another confederation could be a cakewalk, a nightmare or something in between for whomever places fourth in CONCACAF. New Zealand (ranked 111th in FIFA’s standings) would likely be the easiest potential opponent, while South America’s playoff participant shapes up as being a world-class team such as Uruguay, Chile or Colombia. Asia’s qualifying system could send Japan or Australia playoff-bound — neither of which would be an easy out.

The CONCACAF schedule looks rather straightforward — eight games gone, six to go — but not all matchups are created equal in this region, and Berhalter’s U.S. group has some of its toughest fixtures still on the docket, as well as some of its easiest.

Dates at home against struggling El Salvador and Honduras confer hope that the U.S. will compile a solid collection of points. However, what now appear to be the three most daunting road trips remain on the slate, starting with a Jan. 30 hop to Canada at a venue to be decided, then two of the final three games being visits to Mexico and Costa Rica.

Man for man, the U.S. is undoubtedly among the best three teams in the region. The U.S. should be good enough to qualify. Those two things are fact. They are also exactly what was said four years ago, before everything fell apart, culminating with a final-day debacle in Trinidad and Tobago that left the American soccer community stunned and a young Christian Pulisic in tears on the field.

Canada’s momentum, which has ignited that country behind John Herdman’s squad, won’t do anything to ease the U.S. nerves. The Canadians fought with everything they had Tuesday, setting up a two-goal lead and then clinging nervously as Mexico mounted a (very) late revival.

There was pushing and shoving and plenty of hostility both in the closing minutes and after the final whistle, but it ended with an overwhelming scene of joy, highlighted by Canada’s Bayern Munich star Alphonso Davies running the full length of the field with a maple flag hoisted aloft.

"We’ve been scrapping every game. We find every opportunity we can just to let people know this is life or death for us," Herdman told reporters. "It is a 14-game war. We are looking for those opportunities to get a 1 percent advantage on these opponents."

The freezing conditions and a pressed turf field in Edmonton offered sizably more than 1 percent benefit, and when the U.S. comes north on Jan. 30, Canada will again try to optimize the home edge. Expect somewhere mightily cold, though Edmonton might be so buried in snow that it will be unplayable by that time of year. Regardless, Canada will try to put the game, as it is allowed to, in a spot where home advantage will be at its highest.

Canada has made it to only one World Cup, in 1986, and hasn’t been remotely close since, failing to even make the CONCACAF final qualifying stage since 1998.

But this is a new time, with a new rivalry brewing, and for now, it's a new headache for the U.S. to deal with on the road to Qatar.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider Newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter here.