Kinda hard when other, more lucrative, sports steal most of your domestic talent. There is a reason the women's team is dominant in a way that then men's team is not, but the fact that a good US player really has to leave the country and take a gamble that most US collegiate athletes do not require does not help.

Sorry, but it just doesn't make sense. You just can't make excuses anymore. What happened this time around is beyond acceptable imo.

Iceland, with a population of ~300,000, was able to qualify in (arguably) the toughest region in the world. The US has about 1000 people for every Icelandic citizen, and yet we couldn't even qualify in (arguably) the EASIEST region in the world.

I'm simply dumbfounded by how bad the US team is. Let's just hope we get there next time.

Nobody (within small margin of error) cares for soccer in the US. So, no good team.

Tell that to the ~50,000 people who attend basically every Atlanta United game.

The thing is, we aren't just "bad": we're terrible by any standard out there. It's borderline pitiful. And look at how good the women's team is...

One of my "countries of origin" has basically qualified at least (Tunisia). Now we wait for Australia...

Crap, can't escape the depression of a World Cup without the US, even in Hacker News.