"**** Happens in Soccer" 101...
- The field was flooded before the game and was borderline unplayable (which usually favors the inferior team) and the US hard a terrible time adjusting to the glacial pace of the ball
- The US scored an own goal you couldn't replicate if you tried 1000x times
- The T&T player scored the goal of his life from 40 yards
- Pulisic's tying bid hit the post
- The phantom goal by Panama
- And I want to say ANOTHER team scored a relevant goal that helped knocked the US out
People love to stick narrative to things (Arena, the "generation gap", gutless players, etc etc etc), but sometimes **** just happens.
Dempsey, not Pulisic, hit the post after subbing in. Damn, I remember way too much of that game
As for the other games, not only did the US need to lose, they needed two other things to happen to not qualify.
Panama had to win
Honduras had to win
both Panama and Honduras were losing at half time of that last game.
It was as perfect a storm as one could conjure.
I always think too many people focus on this one game though as the reason the US did not qualify. In reality they needed only
1 point from any of the 6 other games they did not win before this game to qualify and make the T&T game meaningless.