While most of the U.S. men's national team’s first-choice players enjoy the afterglow of a wild win over Mexico and start their summer breaks, their road to next year’s World Cup has been mapped out.
Elsewhere in Concacaf, 29 lower-ranked countries have been competing this month for three available spots in the final round of World Cup qualifying, which will comprise eight teams for the first time. That competition ended Tuesday evening, with Canada, El Salvador and Panama emerging from the pack. They’ll join the U.S., Mexico, Costa Rica, Honduras and Jamaica in the octagonal, a double-round-robin gauntlet from which three nations will book passage to Qatar (a fourth will enter an intercontinental playoff).