USA Men’s Soccer Needs to Step its Game Up

The Men's National Soccer team is still going to make it to the next round of qualifying, but if it hopes to continue on from there the team is going to have to up the level of play.

Tuesday night they faced off against a Guatemalan team that was in the midst of some pretty serious internal strife, but were only able to manage a 1-1 draw. Even if the Guatemalan team was at full strength and focused, it should not have been able to keep up with the U.S. team; the U.S. is the 28th best team in the world while the Guatemalan team is ranked 85th.

The lackluster performance really shouldn't come as to big of a surprise. They really did not look to sharp against Antigua and Barbuda even though they still won 3-1. The scoreless match with Canada a few days prior to that was discouraging as was the tutorial the team was given in a friendly with Brazil.

Even with the less than inspiring play it is likely that the U.S. will make it into the final round of qualifying from which three teams will make it; the level of competition in their group is not very high. They shouldn't have too much trouble qualifying for the World Cup for an eighth consecutive time either. Next to Mexico (who is ranked 19th) the toughest team they will play will be 46th rated Panama.