What 2018 FIFA World Cup Draw Means for USA Hopes

FIFA held the preliminary draw for the 2018 World Cup on Saturday in St. Petersburg, Russia, providing fans with a symbolic starting point for the long qualification process.

Russia have already qualified as hosts, but all of the remaining 208 FIFA member associations participated in the draw, including the United States. So what does it all mean for the Americans' hopes of qualifying for the 2018 World Cup? Well, not very much, actually.

Nick Wass/Associated Press

The reasons should be obvious for anyone who's ever maintained even a passing interest in the qualification process for the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football.

That process takes place in several stages, with the U.S. and the region's other powers entering in the second-to-last round. But even at that point—which is where the draw placed the U.S. on Saturday—the competition almost certainly will not trouble the Americans at all.

In fact, U.S. coach Jurgen Klinsmann has set his sights much higher. In May, he told FIFA.com:

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We set the bar very high because we want to explain to the players what it really takes to get to a semi-final. We left Ghana and Portugal behind us in Brazil 2014 and we almost drew with Germany and almost beat Belgium too. These are all big names. So the players understand they can actually beat big nations if everything goes well on that particular day. Now we need to educate the players what to do when the Round of 16 is over. We have to examine what it takes to win a quarter-final, to get into a semi-final. A lot of consistency is required. The path over the next three and a half years is to explain constantly to the players that anything is possible. You can do this, but you have to learn to become a tournament team.

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A quick overview of the CONCACAF qualifying process should illustrate the point further. Qualification has already begun for most of the confederation's 35 members, with the first two rounds eliminating the tiniest of the minnows.

Saturday's draw set up the matchups for the third round, which added two new teams, Jamaica and Haiti, into the mix. In this round, 12 teams were drawn into head-to-head matchups and will play a home-and-away series over two legs. The winners of those six pairings will advance to the fourth round.

David Goldman/Associated Press

This is where the United States will begin play. But while the fourth round might sound late in the process, it's not. The U.S. should have an easy time advancing to the fifth and final round, having been drawn with Trinidad and Tobago and the winners of two third-round pairings (St. Vincent and the Grenadines vs. Aruba, and Antigua and Barbuda vs. Guatemala). Out of those four teams, only Guatemala represent an opponent that could give the U.S. some trouble.

The draw might have been more difficult if the U.S. had drawn Jamaica or Haiti in its group. As it turned out, both will land in Group B, with Costa Rica and Panama, if they win their third-round matchups as expected.

In addition, the U.S. avoided Panama and Honduras in the fourth round, as Steven Goff of the Washington Post noted:

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Regardless of the preliminary draw results, Jurgen Klinsmann's crew would've been expected to advance to CONCACAF's final round. But it received an easier path than the other heavyweights by avoiding Honduras and Panama in the semifinal stage. Honduras has qualified for the past two World Cups and Panama showed its strength at this month's CONCACAF Gold Cup, advancing to the semifinals before a controversial defeat to Mexico on Wednesday in Atlanta.

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The fact is that the U.S. only has to finish in the top two of its group to advance to the final round of six teams. According to ESPN's Paul Carr, the U.S. has a 99 percent chance to do so:

After the fourth round, qualification finally becomes interesting in the fifth round, the phase popularly known as the "hexagonal" or just the "hex."

The hex will include the first- and second-placed teams from the three fourth-round groups. All six teams will play each other home and away, and the top three teams will qualify automatically for the World Cup. The U.S. has qualified for every World Cup since 1990 (though qualification came automatically as hosts in 1994), so Klinsmann and his team will be confident of doing so again, despite its disappointing performance in this summer's Gold Cup.

Felipe Dana/Associated Press

Only one detail remains: The fourth-placed team in the hex will still have a chance to qualify through an intercontinental playoff, as Mexico did for the 2014 event.

Saturday's draw determined that CONCACAF's fourth-placed team will play the fifth-placed team from Asian qualifying. Last time, that team was Jordan, who lost a lopsided playoff to Uruguay.

All in all, Saturday's draw meant little for the U.S. team's hopes of World Cup qualification. Navigating the fourth round should require a minimum of fuss, and regardless of the poor performance in the Gold Cup, the U.S. will expect to finish in the top three of the hex.

At this point in the program's development, World Cup qualification is an absolute minimum requirement.

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