92 Years — CONCACAF’s History of Failure at the Biggest Stage
When you look at World Cup performances regionally over the past decades, a trend is clear — Europe has always dominated proceedings, with South America being the only other contender. There has never been a single World Cup where a UEFA team did not feature in the semifinals; CONMEBOL, on the other hand, has missed the semifinals in five editions of the World Cup. No other region can even compare. Although there’s always surprises here and there — with South Korea making the semifinals in 2002 and Morocco making it during the past edition, for instance—these are simply isolated incidents in which teams from weaker regions played above their level for short periods of time. South Korea’s success, may I add, were probably aided by some dodgy refereeing and blatant match-fixing, but I digress.
Nevertheless, it still counts, and both both AFCON and AFC — the African and Asian soccer confederations, respectively — have been represented in the semifinals in the past twenty years. That leaves two regions left.
I won’t talk about Oceania because, well, it’s Oceania. It’s probably in New Zealand’s best interest to try and move over to the AFC.
But, I will talk about CONCACAF.
I don’t think I’m wrong in saying that CONCACAF has always been a letdown of a region. Soccer is incredibly popular in North America — the country of Mexico alone in 2006 reportedly has 8.5 million players, as per FIFA’s “Big Count.” That places it sixth worldwide. The U.S., on the other hand, had 24 million players.
This is including all players at every possible level, so take these numbers for what you will. But it really puts things into perspective when you realize that a country like Uruguay — a two time world champion that consistently produces elite or even world-class players like Edison Cavani, Luis Suarez, Diego Forlan, and more recently, Fede Valverde — has a population of 3.5 million. Croatia, which has now reached the semifinals in two straight World Cups, of 3.9 million, and has produced Luka Modric — one of the best playmakers in the past few decades.
On the other hand, CONCACAF has yet to produce a truly world class player of late, with the exception maybe being Canada’s Alphonso Davies. It’s important to note that to me, world class means being a top 5 player in one’s position, and out of the best players in North America, only the aforementioned Davies can maybe make that claim.
But not only has CONCACAF failed to produce many world class players, it also has not reached the semifinals of the World Cup more than once. The last time we ever did was when the U.S. got 4th in the inaugural edition of the World Cup in 1930 — i.e. the one that only had 13 teams. It barely counts — and even if it does, it still means that we as a region haven’t reached the final four once in the past 92 years.
Even if we lower our standards down to quarterfinals, CONCACAF has only reached this stage twice in the past 20 years. The U.S. did so, ironically, at the expensive of CONCACAF counterparts and rivals Mexico with a famous dos a cero win in the Round of 16 before bowing out due to a very controversial loss to Germany in the quarterfinals in 2002. Had VAR existed back then, the U.S. may very well have made it into the final four — but that match is a story for a different time. Costa Rica made a miraculous run in 2014, defeating both Uruguay and Italy in the group stage before bowing out to the Netherlands on penalties in the quarterfinals. Mexico has famously been unable to reach the quarterfinals since 1986. The Round of 16, or “el quinto partido,” has haunted El Tri forever — until this year, where they did not even make it to the Round of 16.
There’s a few things to blame for North America’s failures. For one, the giants of the region, the U.S. and Mexico, have many flaws in their developmental systems. Whereas Mexico produces many high ceiling players, Liga MX has been incredibly reluctant to send their products abroad. Moreover, the players themselves may prefer to stay in Mexico to play for a higher wage. In the U.S., Major League Soccer’s byzantine policies and rules, including nonsense such as “allocation money,” “residency rights,” and “discovery rights,” often leave players between a rock and a hard place, unable to move to the clubs they want to.
Not to mention, regional competitions in CONCACAF are a joke. Forget the UEFA Champions League — I would die for CONCACAF to have a tournament at the level of the Copa Libertadores in South America. Instead, we have the CONCACAF Champions League, a tournament that historically was just a way for Liga MX teams to play their backups against teams from inferior leagues until the Mexican clubs had to play actual competition in the tournament — i .e. against each other. Hopefully Major League Soccer’s victory in the tournament this past year, courtesy of the Seattle Sounders, is a sign of better things to come.
And with the region hosting the World Cup in 2026, it would be a complete disaster if CONCACAF doesn’t represent itself well. The 2022 World Cup was nothing short of embarrassing, as only the U.S. was able to make it out of their, albeit quite easy, group. Some may say that this World Cup was a success for the USMNT, but I’d be hesitant to say the same. Making it out of our group was the bare minimum for the most talented American team of all time; by the same token, it should be the bare minimum for CONCACAF to have more than one team feature in the Round of 16. But what can I say This region, in spite of all of its facilities, has always struggled for minimums.
