USA accept able for seven-straight World Cups but hopes of extensive Russia in 2018

The U.S. men's civic soccer aggregation poses advanced of Friday's 2018 World Cup condoning bout adjoin Guatemala at Mateo Flores Stadium in
Guatemala City. The U.S. absent 2-0.

The U.S. men's civic soccer aggregation plays Guatemala tonight, in a acute condoning bold in Columbus, Ohio, that could adjudge if it plays in the 2018 World Cup. The U.S. absent the first-round bold 2-0 in Guatemala City on Friday, in a achievement that soccer analyst Craig Burley alleged "an absolute shambles."

It was the aboriginal time that the United States had absent to Guatemala in 21 games, and the latest in a amount of disappointments for the U.S. while arena teams such as Jamaica, Brazil, Mexico and Costa Rica. A accident this black could accumulate the U.S. out of the World Cup for the aboriginal time back 1986.

U.S. drillmaster Jürgen Klinsmann studies the play during a World Cup qualifier amid his band and Trinidad and Tobago in November in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

Much of the accusation for the team's blotchy achievement has been laid at the anxiety of drillmaster Jürgen Klinsmann, one of the a lot of acclaimed names in all-embracing soccer. He was allotment of the German aggregation that won the World Cup in 1990, and played for some of the world's top teams — including AC Milan, Tottenham Hotspur and Bayern Munich. As a manager, he accomplished the German civic aggregation to a third-place accomplishment in the 2006 World Cup.

So it seemed like absolutely a accomplishment if U.S. Soccer Federation active Klinsmann to drillmaster the men's civic aggregation in July 2011. Although the U.S. fabricated it to the Round of 16 in the World Cup in Brazil two years ago, his administration has been controversial. Klinsmann has abounding defenders, but even some of those, such as SB Nation's Bill Connelly, accept the all-embracing almanac has been mixed.

Commentators like Graham Parker accusation common changes in calendar and strategy. "The aggregation feels as if it exists in a assuredly conditional state," he wrote in The Guardian on Saturday, and a amount of others accede with the affect in this LA Times banderole today: "Another accident to Guatemala could spell the end for U.S. soccer drillmaster Jürgen Klinsmann"

Still, supporters of the U.S. aggregation should not lose achievement — The Associated Press addendum that the aggregation has been actuality before: "The U.S. was in a agnate position in the standings four years ago, if it had three credibility afterwards three matches and was advancing off a accident at Jamaica that had some analytic Klinsmann's decisions. The Americans responded with a 1-0 home win over the Reggae Boyz."

Tonight's bold starts at 7:25 p.m. ET. You can watch it on ESPN 2.

And if the U.S. loses? There's consistently that (very) aside adventitious of an agitated a part of added teams in the accumulation that could let the U.S. through.