U.S. Ties El Salvador in World Cup Qualifying

The Americans will not have long to linger over Thursday night’s result: Two more qualifiers loom in the coming days, against Canada on Sunday in Nashville and against Honduras on Wednesday in San Pedro Sula. The former may present the tougher competitive test, the latter the more dangerous one, mentally and physically, of this compressed window.

Those games will mark the first hurried steps of the final round of qualifying, normally an 18-month slog that has been compressed to a seven-month sprint because of pandemic delays and postponements. That means three games in most windows, rather than the usual two, and less time to revel in victories or wallow in defeats. It means injuries and absences like Pulisic’s may prove more problematic, and disappointing results more costly.

It means that for a young United States team, whose starting lineup on Thursday had an average age of 23 years and 282 days, there will be no time to look back and wonder how Thursday might have gone differently. Now that it’s over, the Americans will fly home with their hard-won point, their hopes for three more only a few days away.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/sports/soccer/usmnt-el-salvador.html