2020 CONCACAF Olympic Qualifiers

[Flex]

U.S. men's soccer fails to qualify for Olympics thanks to embarrassing goalkeeper mistake
Henry Bushnell - Yahoo Sports

The men's soccer competition at the Olympics is far from the most prestigious international tournament. But failing to qualify can be both a worrying omen and program stain.

And fail to qualify is exactly what the U.S. men did on Sunday – for the third consecutive Olympic cycle.

A 2-1 loss to Honduras in a decisive semifinal will extend their Games absence to at least 16 years.

A mostly-under-23 American B-team, as required by competition rules, was outplayed by an under-23 Honduran squad and deservedly beaten.

A costly goalkeeping error
The deciding goal, though, came via a fluky, inexcusable mistake. U.S. goalkeeper David Ochoa played a costly pass directly onto the goalscoring foot of Honduran attacker Luis Palma. The ball ricocheted off Palma's boot and into a gaping net.

Ochoa, who'd been excellent throughout the tournament, was distraught after the game, walking around the pitch with his hands over his head.

As he crouched alone, Palma, the Honduran goalscorer, and Ochoa's club teammate two season ago, came over to console him.

Honduras had scored a few minutes before halftime to take the lead. Ochoa's gaffe doubled the lead early in the second half.

U.S. midfielder Jackson Yueill, a 24-year-old reserve with the senior national team, pulled the U.S. back to within one with a 25-yard firecracker.

But the young Americans couldn't find an equalizer. And just as they did in 2012 and 2016, they fell short of the Olympics. Honduras qualified in their place. Either Mexico or Canada will claim the second North American spot Sunday night.

Contextualizing the U.S. qualifying failure
An Olympic qualifying failure is nowhere near on par with the USMNT's 2018 World Cup qualifying failure. But the Games are often seen as a barometer of youth development. Failures in 2012 and 2016 were alarming signs of insufficient progress.

This failure is slightly different – slightly. Youth development on the men's side has improved in recent years. A bevy of under-23 American stars are now playing at some of the world's biggest clubs. Weston McKennie is at perennial Italian champion Juventus. Christian Pulisic is at English Premier League power Chelsea. Tyler Adams is at RB Leipzig in Germany. Gio Reyna is also in Germany at Borussia Dortmund. The list is extensive, and growing, seemingly by the month.

Those players weren't part of this Olympic qualifying team. Because the Olympics are considered a youth event, and occur outside an official international window, professional clubs aren't required to release their players to Olympic teams. Very few over in Europe did. Many of those promising young stars were with the senior USMNT, beating Jamaica and Northern Ireland in friendlies this week.

Even some MLS teams didn't release players. One of them, Atlanta United's Miles Robinson, tweeted after the game: "Wish I coulda been there."

And so this was something of an under-23 B-team. Pulisic and others might have played at the actual Olympics. This squad, however, was comprised of mostly MLS youngsters.

Still, though, the U.S. was favored to qualify, and should have. This is a failure, an unvarnished failure. It's a missed opportunity, and another blemish on an awful half-decade for American men's soccer.

[Deeks]

US missed quite a few chances. But the Honduras defended like the Warriors at Couva. Good Luck Hondo.

[Flex]

Why FIFA blocks the U.S. men's national team from playing for an Olympics spot
Kevin Baxter (LA TIMES)

A U.S. national team featuring 15 players off European megaclubs such as Barcelona, Manchester City, Chelsea and Roma beat Northern Ireland on Sunday in a friendly, the soccer equivalent of an exhibition game. Teenager Gio Reyna scored the first goal and Christian Pulisic, the youngest player to ever captain the men’s national team, scored the second as the U.S. beat a European team at home for the first time in six years.

Four hours after that game ended, another U.S. national team kicked off in Mexico needing a win to qualify for the Tokyo Games. That team featured only three players from outside MLS, including a goalkeeper who has made just one MLS start. That team lost to Honduras and the U.S. failed to make the Olympic cut for the fourth time in five tries.

Which begs a simple question: Why was the A team in Europe playing a relatively meaningless friendly while a lesser team was in Mexico losing to Honduras in a game that meant everything? The answer isn’t as simple, but it has a lot to do with FIFA, the governing body for global soccer.

For starters FIFA required those big clubs to release their players to their senior national teams because Sunday’s game took place during an official match window set aside for international competition. But they weren’t required to release their players to events such as Olympic qualifying, which FIFA classifies as an age-group tournament. Even Atlanta United, an MLS club with close ties to U.S. Soccer, declined to let three of its age-eligible players go to the Olympic qualifying event.

While the women’s Olympic tournament, which debuted in 1996, has always been considered a major championship open to the best players in the world, that is more a product of FIFA’s long-held disdain for the women’s game than it is an attempt to raise the profile of the tournament. FIFA has long conspired to make sure the men’s Olympic event pales in importance to the World Cup, although the two competitions have a common beginning.

FIFA actually managed the 1920, ’24 and ’28 Olympic tournaments, which were amateur events that proved so successful the winners were considered “world champions.” But the International Olympic Committee opposed opening the competition to professionals, so FIFA took the sport out of the 1932 Games in Los Angeles to create and promote its own tournament, the World Cup.

Soccer returned to the IOC’s calendar in 1936, under FIFA’s direction, yet by then the World Cup had eclipsed the amateur tournament and the Olympics have never regained the prestige it once had — and both the IOC and FIFA share the blame for that.

By clinging to strict rules banning professionals into the 1980s, the IOC effectively kept the best players in the world out of its event, allowing the World Cup to become the globe’s largest and most important sporting competition. And FIFA intended to keep it that way, so when the IOC voted to allow professional players for the 1984 L.A. Games, FIFA watered down the competition by placing restrictions on who could participate.

It codified that in 1992 by turning the Olympic tournament into an age-group competition, limiting rosters to players aged 23 and younger, with three over-age exemptions. The IOC, it should be noted, didn’t protest, fearing that a World Cup-level event during the Games would overshadow traditional Olympic sports such as track and field, gymnastics and swimming.

But while some nations have figured out how to make that work — Argentina won back-to-back gold medals in 2004 and 2008, and Mexico has made the knockout round in seven straight World Cups while qualifying for six of the eight Olympic tournaments in the U-23 era — the U.S. has not.

Not only did the Americans miss the 2018 World Cup, but they’ve played in the Olympics just once since 2000 and have won just four matches in the Summer Games since 1992. Not exactly the kind of resume that cries out “soccer nation.”

However, Sunday’s loss to Honduras — a country that qualified for four straight Olympics and two of the last three World Cups — will sting more than the rest.

With the likes of Pulisic, Reyna, Sergiño Dest, Yunus Musah, Weston McKennie and Tim Weah all age-eligible for Tokyo — provided they were able to secure release from their clubs, the final FIFA-constructed hurdle — the Americans would have entered the Games as medal favorites.

Now they’ll be watching on TV instead. And that will leave a mark, said World Cup veteran Stuart Holden, who, in 2008, scored the game-winning goal in the last Olympic match the U.S. won.

“You think about the opportunities we have to play in a tournament that replicates the World Cup, but also where we actually get to play in games that mean something against top teams from all around the world. That doesn't happen other than the World Cup,” said Holden, now a Fox Soccer commentator. “The Olympics is that other opportunity that is a truly global tournament.”

Lionel Messi’s only international title came in the 2008 Olympics. Neymar delivered a gold medal for Brazil eight years later.

“Some of the best players to ever have played the game have played in the Olympics,” Holden said. “It actually kind of infuriates me that people just write it off as 'Well, the Olympics doesn't really matter.’ It definitely matters because of that opportunity. Imagine we could roll out a team with our best under-23s. We'd be up there for the first time ever, when it comes to a global tournament, with one of the best five teams going to the Olympics. That's putting yourself in a conversation with Germany and Spain and Brazil, Argentina.”

On Sunday, expecting a U.S. victory, Holden broke out the Olympic jacket he wore during the Beijing Games, hoping to feature it during the Fox broadcast. Instead, he put it back in storage after the loss to Honduras. But the experience of those Games remains fresh, and Holden is sorry this year’s team won’t get the chance to make memories of its own.

“That stacks up with my best lifetime achievements,” said Holden, who won two MLS Cups, a Gold Cup and played in a World Cup match. “I remember walking out representing the United States in the opening ceremony, and you're walking with the best athletes from all other sports, and it's really such a unique opportunity, where sports collide.

“You feel like you're representing Team USA. It was just such a special moment. I had a wave of emotions, anger, frustration, disappointment [that] these guys will miss out on that opportunity. It means so much to go to the Olympics.”

Apparently not to FIFA.

[Cocorite]

Honduras playing all over Mexico. Ref awarded a dubious (at best) PK, now Honduras losing they head.

1-1 83 min

[maxg]

I'm sure Canada is gonna bring Buchanan next WC qualifying rounds.

[Deeks]

I'm sure Canada is gonna bring Buchanan next WC qualifying rounds.

Buchanan is a good player. Has a hard shot. It is hard to decipher Canada. They fell short. Get pass El Sal and tied with Hondo. Then they came up against the Mex. roadblock. I would be surprised if he was not drafted into the Canada senior team.

[Trini _2026]

BFA officials say the door is open for all eligible players
https://www.loopnewsbarbados.com/content/bfa-officials-say-door-open-all-eligible-players


In recent weeks, the Jamaica Football Federation (JFF) and the Jamaica men’s senior national football team have decorated sports pages and conversations across the globe.

The topic of discussion has been their major recruitment of European professional footballers for their 2021 Concacaf Gold Cup and 2022 FIFA World Cup assignments.


Some popular names from the English Premier League have been mentioned by the JFF, names such as; West Ham United’s Michail Antonio, Everton’s Mason Holgate and Nathan Redmond of Southampton.

The biggest name must be former England Youth international Demarai Gray, formerly of Leicester City but now a key member of the German outfit Bayern Leverkusen.

According to news reports, more popular names from the professional circuit are scheduled to join the “Reggae Boyz” roster, which will be reminiscent of the 1998 FIFA World Cup squad, which went to France with seven players from the English professional leagues, who received eligibility through their Jamaican heritage.

This recent buzz in the regional football circuit has encouraged other nations to enhance their scouting in an effort to be competitive in the confederation but most importantly to make a major tournament.

Barbados has not been excluded from that group and in recent years, we have acquired the likes of Hallam Hope and Krystian Pearce from England, Nick Blackman who is based in Israel and most notably, the son of former West Indies Cricketer Emmerson Trotman- Ryan who plies his trade in the Netherlands.

Coach of the men’s team Russell Latapy, said as long as the players abroad are eligible to represent Barbados, they will receive that opportunity.

Speaking to Loop News, coach Latapy said any players coming into the squad must be the right players who can fit into the environment and make a positive contribution on the field and in the dressing room, but the most important aspect is; they must be better than who we already have.

“I don’t think we have enough money at the BFA that we can be bringing in players for leisure; we just can’t afford it.

Plus I believe some of the young players we have are very talented players and  given the right guidance, the right development, the right opportunities and the most important, the right support, they can go onto  have fantastic careers as professionals and national team players,” said Latapy.

The former Trinidad and Tobago international was full of praise for his players’ hospitality and professionalism towards the new Tridents, as he saw it as a necessary component to the performance of the newcomers and subsequently the team.

President of the Barbados Football Association and the Caribbean Football Union (CFU) Randy Harris explained that Jamaica's situation is not a universal one and the individual immigration laws of a country determine who is eligible to be a citizen of their country.

President Harris said before a person can play for a country, they must be a citizen of that nation.

“In order for one of these players to be a citizen of Barbados, their parents will have to be citizens firstly.

Immigration from Barbados [to England] started in the late 50’s and basically some of those players are now grand-children and great-grand-children of the Barbadian immigrants.

It puts us in a different situation to Jamaica, where once there’s Jamaican heritage, that player can become eligible at once.”

Harris expressed gratitude to the Barbados Immigration Department for their services to the BFA, especially their role in assisting with the logistics of the citizenship arrangements and ensuring all eligibility bases are covered.

The President of the BFA reiterated that as long as the parent of the player has Barbadian citizenship via any means; and has the documentation to prove it then they may apply for citizenship.I

[asylumseeker]

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