The Greatest Loss in United States Soccer History

One win or draw was all they needed and they didn’t get it. The United States men’s soccer team will not be heading to the World Cup for the first time since 1986. On Tuesday night, the team collapsed against Trinidad and Tobago, a team that was already eliminated from the World Cup and had nothing to lose, playing for pride. Even with a loss, the U.S. had a chance to stay in world cup contention with a victory from either Honduras or Panama. Heading into the night the team had a 93 percent chance to qualify for the Cup according to ESPN’s soccer power index. Shockingly against all odds, the team headed into halftime trailing two goals to zero. Despite a halftime substitution by head coach Bruce Arena to bring in Clint Dempsey, they were not able to pull off the comeback, ultimately losing the match two goals to one. According to the ELO rating system, this is the greatest United States men’s soccer loss as the team had a 82.7 percent chance to come home with a win and a ticket to the 2018 World Cup hosted by Russia. The team cannot come back from this anytime soon, as the next opportunity will be to make it into the 2022 world cup.