What went wrong vs. Belgium & a look-ahead to the 2028 Copa América

Nine years ago, in the wake of Couva, I wrote a denouement piece – an epitaph, really, for that World Cup cycle. It was a very raw and painful time, one in which it was easy to overreact and go pure emotion rather than measured reason.

I opted for the latter, and in the near-decade since, have always been glad I did. Because my take had largely held up.

The failure in the 2018 cycle was, I argued, a one-time thing. Very likely it was just a blip caused by an aging roster, a lost generation unable to backfill*, a catastrophic performance in goal from Tim Howard, and a catastrophic combination of personnel and tactical choices from Bruce Arena. And on the flip side there was so, so much talent coming through the pipeline that we'd never be at that kind of crossroads ever again. There would always be enough talent on hand to do the bare minimum – qualify for the World Cup.

(*) There are a million reasons the Lost Generation happened. At some point a newsletter listing them will hit your inbox.

That talent, though, had me dreaming eight-year dreams that were bigger than mere qualification. Christian Pulisic was already on the team in Couva, remember, and Tyler Adams should've been. If Weston McKennie had made a different choice for where to start his club career, he could've been there, too (one of the great "what-ifs" in MLS history is "what if Oscar Pareja integrates McKennie into that double-winning FC Dallas side ahead of the 2016 season?").

And there were others on the way. It was clear, by 2016, that the '98s through '00s were a pretty special crop of talent, but we were also seeing the '95s through '97s push into real MLS minutes by then. Those guys would help patch cracks and raise the floor. And I remember the group chat blowing up during the 2016 GA Cup, because NYCFC had a kid with a familiar last name on the '02s, and there was a sniper of a striker on FC Dallas's '03s.

They were all so young, but the time to turn the page had emphatically arrived. There was another cycle coming up quickly, and, one cycle beyond that, a home World Cup with all those guys in their primes.

We wouldn't win it, of course. Everyone knew that. But a trip back to the quarterfinals, like we managed in 2002? Maybe we beat one of the big boys along the way, or at least go out on our shield?

Got to get there first, of course, and there'd be bumps along the way. Tough losses, tough injuries, and some of these kids just wouldn't pan out. That's how it goes for every team in the world. But we were now producing a breadth and depth of talent that would insulate us against catastrophic failure, and hopefully turbo-charge the climb towards, if not precisely into, the top 10.

There was a path. The worst thing had happened, we survived it, and now we could start taking steps forward.

And now here we are. The home World Cup arrived, the guys we identified in 2016 were pillars of the program, and it should have been the moment. Instead, Belgium sent them home in the round that was supposed to be the floor, not the ceiling, and did it in a way that felt less like bad luck than like... lack of will? Lack of heart? Or maybe just the orange ooze corrupting everything it touches.

I want to be careful here, the same way I tried to be careful nine years ago, because it would be easy to let Monday night curdle into something it isn't. So let's back up.