2018 World Cup Qualifiers Russia zone North America: Costa Rica 2-0 USA
After suffering an opening loss to Mexico 2-1 in Columbus, the USMNT got destroyed in San Jose Costa Rica. A very pale performance from Klinsmann’s men whose job is now in jeopardy with two opening defeats. The Copa Centenario performance a few months back [USA 4-0 Costa Rica] seems very far now as US Men’s National Team hit rock bottom. No team has ever qualified to a World Cup in the Concacaf zone after losing their first two games. USA has eight games now to prove it wrong.
Klinsmann comments and tries to find solutions:
“This is the defeat that hurts the most in my five years here, there’s no doubt about it. We had some chances but I think they gave us a psychological knock with that goal right before halftime. There’s always things you look back on and think you should have done differently. It’s not about the system.
It’s about the willingness to fight back, and after the second goal they didn’t have that power or that drive to get back into the game.”
Captain Bradley added:
“On a night like this there is no point in trying to look at it any other way. We have to be big enough and strong enough to say we weren’t good enough.”We’re going to have a few days to get together and understand that there’s going to need to be some urgency. We have to look in the mirror real hard at ourselves and understand it’s not going to be a good start. But the reality in this Hexagonal format is that nothing is lost yet.”
