Jurgen Klinsmann’s job is surely on the line tonight.
All eyes in these parts are on the Aviva Stadium as the build-up to France 2016 continues with Ireland’s game against Slovakia, but elsewhere the qualification process for the 2018 World Cup is already in full swing.
The initial group stages in the Concacaf region are at the halfway mark, and while most of the football world’s focus is elsewhere, the USA have contrived to put themselves in real danger of being eliminated from the World Cup this evening.
Klinsmann’s side welcome Guatemala to Columbus, Ohio knowing that failure to beat their Central American rivals would severely limit their chances of reaching the next stage of the qualification race.
A surprise 2-0 defeat in Guatemala on Friday night, their first against Los Chapines since the 1980s, leaves the US lying third in a four-team group, trailing tonight’s opponents and Trinidad and Tobago.
With only two teams advancing, defeat would leave the Americans five points behind Guatemala, needing favours from winless minnows St Vincents and the Grenadines to have any hope of going through.
Even a draw would leave the US struggling, and needing other results to go their way, with an increasingly frustrated American soccer public bound to take out their anger on Klinsmann.
