Five failures for the U.S.: center-back woe, ineffective attack, more

There is no mincing of words as the ESPN FC team dissect what went wrong during the USMNT's World Cup campaign.COUVA, Trinidad -- By one measure, the end came all at once. Three results across CONCACAF, all of them bad for the United States men's national team, left the Americans in fifth place of the Hexagonal and out of the World Cup for the first time since 1986.

But by another, the disaster for the U.S. program was built slowly but steadily, borne out of the same repeated mistakes and systemic failures that occurred throughout the qualification process. The squad formed by Jurgen Klinsmann and then shaped further by Bruce Arena dodged their way out of catastrophe after catastrophe until…