by Jeff Dieffenbach

The U.S. Men’s National Team survived two scares in advancing to their World Cup quarterfinal match against Germany. In the semifinal round of qualifying, they needed a final game victory over Barbados to clinch a spot in the CONCACAF finals. In the cup itself, losing 2-0 to Poland, they needed a South Korea win over Portugal. They realized both, of course, beating Barbados 4-0 and watching South Korea pull out a 1-0 win.

A third scare failed to materialize. With only two matches to play in the final round of qualifying, the U.S. sat fourth behind Costa Rica, Honduras, and Mexico in a competition from which only three would advance. With Honduras at home and likely to trounce last place Trinidad & Tobago, the U.S. needed results, and badly.

Honduras lost.

As a result, the U.S. climbed into the second spot behind Costa Rica and secured its place in the World Cup final, Mexico and Honduras being tied for third two points back and having to play one another in their final game.

What if Honduras had won?

According to SoccerAge.com’s Jason T. Robinson in an August 6th article, the Honduran national team allegedly took bribes from a Mexican oil company to lose its final two qualifying matches and secure a World Cup berth for the Mexican side. While all parties deny the allegations, the expected Honduran win would certainly have altered the playing field for the Red, White, and Blue.

By virtue of it’s home win against Jamaica, the U.S. would instead have found itself sitting third at 16 points, behind Costa Rica (20) and Honduras (17) and two ahead of Mexico (14) in fourth.

Regardless of the outcome of the final Mexico-Honduras match, a win at T&T would have clinched it for the U.S. A Mexico tie or loss against Honduras would similarly have been enough.

The problem would have been that Mexico would be favored to win at home in their final game, as they did, 3-0, against a now suspect Honduran side. What then for the U.S.?

A loss to T&T would end the run and make 1998 look like a good result. A tie, and the situation gets interesting, with all three teams sitting on 17 points, and only two to move on.

Goal differential.

Even a one goal margin over Honduras puts Mexico ahead of the U.S., +4 to +3. So the final spot would come down to how Honduras might have fared, absent the alleged fixing, against T&T and Mexico.

Assuming that Honduras beats T&T by two and only loses to Mexico by two, their final +0 becomes a +4. Very possible, if not likely. Good bye, U.S.A.

To be sure, the U.S. would have taken to T&T incentive and a more potent strike force than Joe-Max Moore and Jovan Kirovski, but its roster for that match was otherwise sound and unable to do better than a 0-0 draw.

How good was T&T against Honduras? Coming in to the match, they had earned only a draw in eight matches for a –13 goal differential. In the 20th minute against Honduras, they went down a man. In the 61st, Stern John netted the only goal of the game.

The real, question, though, concerns the effort (or lack thereof) put forth by Honduras. How good was Honduras? They had been on a tear of late, climbing from a late 1998 FIFA ranking in the 90s to 20th at the time of the T&T match. They handily won their semifinal qualifying group with five wins and a draw in six matches. Going into the T&T game, they had four wins and two draws in eight final qualifying matches.

Good, but perhaps not good enough to refuse the lubrication of big oil. Had they resisted, the U.S. men might very well have spent June of 2002 with the rest of us watching on television in the middle of the night.