Concacaf Champions League

When former USMNT manager Jürgen Klinsmann labelled the newfangled CONCACAF Nations League a “waste of time” back in October (rich enough coming from a coach that inspired his team to defeats against Mexico, Costa Rica and Guatemala by a combined scoreline of 8-1 during 2018 World Cup qualifying), it was easy to grasp the German’s point: If you limit the amount of big matches you have against quality opponents, you limit your growth.

The USMNT approaches Friday’s CONCACAF Nations League match against Canada needing a victory to have any chance of advancing to the semifinals of the competition, and they'll do so without attacking catalyst Christian Pulisic, who misses out with a hip injury he sustained against Crystal Palace last Saturday.

On Wednesday morning, Canadian residents awoke to extensive coverage of the massive sporting news: Toronto had defeated Minnesota 4-2, the Habs lost to Tampa Bay 3-1, Winnipeg succumbed to Arizona 4-2, Calgary thumped the Flyers 3-1 and the Canucks battered the Red Wings 5-1. What’s more, Donald Trump had welcomed a heavy concentration of Canadians to the White House on Tuesday in the form of the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues. 

Trump congratulated the Blues on the stock market being way up, an agriculture deal with China and a Mike Pence trip to Turkey.

In the end, the scoreline flattered the USMNT. 2-0 isn’t so bad, right folks? Just try and forget the fact that Canada hadn’t scored against the U.S. since 2007, let alone recorded a victory since 1985.

Is it a new low for the U.S.? For those with a longer memory than Twitter allows, it’s difficult to countenance that when remembering 2018 World Cup qualifying performances in San José and Couva, but it’s frightening to think that this is the rebuild — exactly two years and five days — since that entirely disheartening 2-1 loss to Trinidad and Tobago.

Mexico opened play in the Concacaf Nations League with an easy 5-1 road win over Bermuda on Friday night. 

Well, it was mostly easy.

Chucky Lozano was the victim of an incidental punch to the face from the referee, an intentional stomp from an opponent and sliced a penalty kick off the post and wide. But the Napoli winger persevered to record a goal and two assists.

Mexico vs Bermuda Highlights

Early in the match, Lozano was getting up from a foul when the referee inadvertently smacked the Mexican in the face.

France? Naw. England? Pshh. Brazil? As if. 

Want a favorite for the 2022 World Cup? Look no further than the United States men’s national team after it throttled Cuba 7-0 on Friday night. 

Any team that can score four goals in 13 minutes against the 178th-ranked team in the world has to be the frontrunner for the 2022 World Cup. That 3-0 loss to Mexico last month? That was just a meaningless friendly, nothing compared to the intense rigor of a Concacaf Nations League match. 

Sergiño Dest, an 18-year-old Ajax fullback, is one of the brightest young players in the USMNT pool. But he might not be in the pool for long.

Dest has opted not to join Gregg Berhalter’s team for upcoming Concacaf Nations League matches, which would cap-tie the Dutch-American to the USMNT. 

Sergiño Dest turns down USMNT roster call-up - The Washington Post https://t.co/uIs0xSy0Qp

Cuba’s national team left Toronto on Saturday having not only lost its opening Nations League match to Canada 6-0, but having lost five of its players permanently.

| #MLS | [La Presse][French]Five Cuban players defect after the loss to Canada https://t.co/gAMGPcwFC5

Being a national team coach in a landscape where you rarely get to see your players must be difficult, and Costa Rica manager Gustavo Matosas has said to hell with it after less than one year in charge.

Matosas, the head coach, said that he gets bored with the amount of downtime he has compared to the amount of time he actually has to train and work with his players. He felt “unproductive” with so much down time, even though he spends loads of it studying film so that he is prepared to get the most out of the little time he has with his players.

The Jamaica women’s national team has announced that it will refuse to play until it receives the compensation that the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) owes them.

Jamaica's women's national soccer team made the #FIFAWWC for the first time ever in 2019.

They apparently were never paid for their effort, and now they're refusing to play or train. https://t.co/BHkfZO09Pt