USMNT Expectations For 2022 FIFA World Cup Are Falling. Maybe That’s Good?

Of all the stereotypically American personality traits, the one that most embodies the last five years of the U.S. men’s national soccer team is the tendency to overreact.

When the U.S. stunningly failed to qualify for the 2018 World Cup — mostly because the national team pool was at its lowest level in two decades — the response was a pledge not to develop better American players, but to fundamentally transform how those players play together.

We all remember U.S. manager Gregg Berhalter’s stated goal to “change the way the world views American soccer,” in his first media remarks after taking the post.

Three years later, Berhalter has successfully qualified for 2022 in Qatar and won two continental titles — the 2021 Concacaf Nations League and 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup.

And he’s enjoyed more squad depth as a U.S. national team manager than nearly any predecessor before him. Ironically, the roots of that depth were mostly planted before U.S. Soccer was responding to the crisis of not qualifying for 2018, in the form of increased investment in MLS academies and increased pressure for the best young Americans to try to latch on to European youth set-ups.

Yet the Americans’ best moments have come when they’ve leaned into the athleticism, determination and trademark swift counterattacking of previous USMNT eras. And their overall performances have more or less been in line with previous U.S. squads that successfully qualified for five consecutive World Cups from 1998 to 2014.

So if anything, a pair of dispiriting friendlies this week in the final tuneups before the World Cup this November should make clear no such dramatic alteration of the global face of American soccer is likely to come in Qatar.

But if there’s a silver lining to Friday’s thoroughly deserved 2-0 loss to Japan or Tuesday’s sluggish 0-0 draw against Saudi Arabia, it’s that they’ve lowered expectations considerably. And if we’re just talking about your run-of-the-mill American World Cup squad, that’s when they perform best.

In 2002, the U.S. made their deepest run in the World Cup since 1950 with a squad that had veteran leaders, but whose future stars were as young as the current American squad. Landon Donovan and DaMarcus Beasley each played key roles on the team as 20-year-olds. And they made that run in the shadow of a 1998 tournament that included a last-place finish after internal turmoil caused Steve Sampson not to include U.S. captain John Harkes on his squad.

Fast forward to 2010, where another American advanced past the group stage after failing to do so in 2006. Or to 2014, where despite coming off group success four years earlier they were largely unfancied in a “group of death” that included Germany, Ghana and Portugal.

Even Berthalter’s version of the U.S. squad has performed its best when expectations were low and/or negativity was high.

In the summer of 2021, a second-choice squad pulled off arguably Berhalter’s best result by playing a much stronger Mexico team even in the Gold Cup Final and then winning on Miles Robinson’s very late extra time goal.

A bit over a month later, an American squad that started qualifying with disappointing draws away to El Salvador and home against Canada responded with a 4-1 win at Honduras. And their 2-0 home qualifying win over Mexico last November also came amid considerable scrutiny following a loss in Panama the month before.

The USMNT performances this past week don’t particularly inspire confidence in an extremely talented but unusually young World Cup group. And Berhalter has some enormous choices to make based on those performances, since the timing of the 2022 tournament won’t allow much training time before Matchday 1.

If it’s more of the same and a quick exit in the group stage in November, it will be disappointing, but less jarring.

But if they can shake off these rough final dress rehearsals, it will mark a return to the American tradition of exceeding expectations. And this time they’ll be doing so with one of the best collections of talent the program has assembled, capable of making a deeper run if they get out of the group stage.

It might look a lot like some of those previous USMNT squads, not some transformed version of the program that plays in a faux European mold. We can only hope.