The United States Would Not Have Been Able To Defeat Australia To Qualify For The 2018 FIFA World Cup

Such a hypothetical article. Who knows what would have happened. A better pitch in the USA might have benefited or doomed us. Pulisic is a gun and can go a lot on his own. Hindsight is a beautiful thing. 

Interesting site if you see a career in writing on Football... 

I actually had the thought during Concacaf's last match day that I'd rather get the USA, but that was only because they were a better team than Honduras and they wouldn't sit back like so many Asian teams we've struggled against. It would have been a very interesting match up too, our football problems seem to mirror each other's both historically and in the present. The difference is at this point, they seem to completely lack an identity which, for all criticism against him, Ange has given us (even if we were dragged kicking and screaming).


Guess we'll never know now, but I'd love to play them in the near future.

Hard to tell, still thought Honduras is far weaker than the States. I mean the U.S did beat them 6-0. The U.S were garbage all campaign pretty much, anyway,  happy not to tempt fate, we already tempted it a lot in qualifying. 

With a player like Pulisic anything could happen, but honestly man for man i think we are actually slightly better but they also have an absolute star in Pulisic who could make up for that slight difference. However i do think Ange is a far superior manager to Bruce Arena and ultimately i feel that would have been the difference and it was for them in their own qualification campaign, if they had a decent manager they'd be going to the world cup automatically.

Bruce arena was a gun manager in the 90s and early 2000s, won like 4-5 mls titles and took the US to the quarter finals in 2002, but in 2017 he is finished. Still remember the game they thumped us in before the 2010 World Cup.

http://www.espnfc.com.au/major-league-soccer/19/video/3272099/max-and-herc-what-was-bruce-arena-thinking

The discussion goes to the Socceroos vs Honduras around 8 minutes in.

Fair and balanced

american sports commentators are so hard to listen to

usa could beat australia. australia could beat usa. honduras could beat australia if they played again. or not. this is why we actually have qualifying and play each other. thought experiments like that are a waste of time. 

True, but the CONCACAF group was quite unpredictable with a lot of results that made no sense at all. For example Hondouras held Mexico (the group winner) to a draw away, and beat Mexico at home, yet the USA flogged Hondouras 6-1, but then the USA loses 2-1 to last placed Trinidad and Tobago. It appears, the USA, just like Hondouras, ran hot and cold.

Wait didnt mexico beat honduras 3-0?

Another crazy result was usa 4-0 over panama..in the context of panama qualifying directly thats a strange result.