The U.S. Soccer Federation has made some terrible decisions over the years, but we’re about to see its worst yet.
While much of the sports-watching fans in the U.S. were tuned in to watch the Cincinnati Bengals beat the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC Championship, the United States Men’s National Team was busy embarrassing themselves against Canada behind the Paramount+ paywall. The 2-0 defeat to CONCACAF’s best story was a setback in World Cup Qualifying, sure, but matters are being made needlessly worse by U.S. Soccer’s own doing.
The USMNT has one more match remaining in this window and are currently in second place in the final round of qualifiers for the 2022 World Cup — the top three teams from CONCACAF automatically qualify for Qatar and a fourth-place team heads to a play-off. And thankfully, this match is at home against last-place Honduras. Yet, the USSF has managed to turn an easy (and crucial) three points into a dangerous uncertainty.
See, this match is going to be played at Allianz Field — an open-air stadium in St. Paul, Minn. Yes, you read that correctly. With the choice of any venue in the country, the USSF chose to play a match outside in Minnesota … in FEBRUARY. Temperatures for Wednesday’s match are expected to hover around 0°F, and according to Grant Wahl, U.S. Soccer has no plan to move the game to the indoor U.S. Bank Stadium.
Forecast for the latter stages of the USMNT game outdoors in St Paul Wednesday. Source tells me there are currently no contingency plans to move the game indoors to the NFL stadium. pic.twitter.com/Po6HvCRFfO
— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) January 30, 2022
It makes absolutely no sense.
Now, the decision to hold matches in that region did partly fall on Canada’s choice to play Sunday’s match in Hamilton, Ontario, rather than Vancouver. To cut down on travel, the U.S would have selected Portland and San Jose had Canada stuck with that plan. Gregg Berhalter opted to stay East when Hamilton was the choice. But even if travel was a concern, there’s no real justification to hold a match outside in Minnesota in February.
Just think about it. The USMNT are enjoying their most talented group of players in program history — many hold impactful roles at major European clubs. So, when you force them to play in conditions that can literally cause frostbite, you’re limiting that talent’s ability to thrive. It becomes an endurance battle more than an actual soccer game — all to make Honduras feel uncomfortable. This isn’t the NHL’s Winter Classic where players have heated benches and line changes to offer relief. This is soccer where players are tasked with running in those conditions for 45 minutes straight while wearing shorts.
It’s dangerous, and everyone besides USSF can see that. They want another Snow Clasico. And they want to keep visiting fans out of the stands — no matter if it means hurting their own players.
This remains one of the dumbest decisions by USSF ever. https://t.co/aJLBSUzgPq
— Soccer for US (@SoccerforUSPod) January 30, 2022
If the decision makers with U.S. Soccer had any sense, they would put a plan in action now to move the match indoors. But nothing about the federation’s track record has been about making sense. They’ll put their own players and World Cup qualification at risk in the process.
