US Asserts Regional Supremacy

With Mexico’s loss in Kingston tonight, The United States has a clear claim as the best team in CONCACAF in this moment in time. A resound­ing 6–1 vic­tory over Cuba was the right tonic for a team that seemed to be under­per­form­ing against infe­rior com­pe­ti­tion in CONCACAF. Bob Bradley did every­thing right tonight. Start­ing his most sea­soned start­ing XI, get­ting DaMar­cus Beasley’s con­fi­dence back up, and incor­po­rat­ing the three most excit­ing young Amer­i­can play­ers in world cup qualifying.Jose Fran­cisco Tor­res looked more com­fort­able than I had thought he would so early on with the US, and Freddy Adu com­bined with Jozy Alti­dore to score a goal. The future is now for the US.

For all of Coach Bradley’s crit­ics, and I have been one of them, it is tough to argue with suc­cess. Mex­ico the great rival of the US is fac­ing a strug­gle to the death to even make the Hexa­gaonal. With two matches remain­ing on the road, based on tonight’s flat effort, Hon­duras has the leg up on El Tri in Group two and Canada proved they could give EL Tri a match in Chi­a­pas last month. Should Jamaica win its two remain­ing matches and Mex­ico only get a point in its final two it could come down to goal difference.

The United States along with Costa Rica have advanced to the hexag­o­nal. The Ticos don’t have a full time coach yet and will present lit­tle chal­lenge in the next round based on their cur­rent squad. The great­est chal­lenge will come from the two teams that advance from Group 2, but right now the US looks stronger than all of them, thanks to Bob Bradley.