CONCACAF Qualifying - Matchday 9 Preview

It is that time again. Much should be decided this Saturday in the CONCACAF.

Here is the table:



In chronological order, here are the matches Saturday:
Mexico - El Salvador (6 PM Eastern)
Costa Rica - Trinidad and Tobago (10 PM Eastern)
Honduras - United States (10 PM Eastern)

The United States, Mexico and Honduras could clinch a spot in South Africa Saturday. For the US and Mexico it's a win and they are automatically in. For Honduras, a win plus a loss for Costa Rica would do. In practice they would also be in with a win and a draw for Costa Rica, though not mathematically. They are 10 goals ahead in goal differential, so finishing even on points with Costa Rica will put them through. Costa Rica can't clinch a spot Saturday but a win against Trinidad and Tobago or Mexico getting any result against El Salvador would guarantee the Ticos at least a playoff spot.

Since the last update, I've changed to an improved model, which I call the PLM. Its predictions have been shown to be more accurate than the Poisson model. Here are the qualification percentages based on the PLM.




Mexico's chances of winning in each of their matches dropped a bit according to the PLM compared to the Poisson model, so they fell from the team most likely to qualify to third best. None the less, they are overwhelming favorites. Keep in mind that the model uses only results and not injuries, see below for more on that, and it does not take into account that Trinidad and Tobago, El Salvador and possibly the United States will have nothing to play for the last matchday.

Match Previews


Mexico - El Salvador

Home Field Advantage

You can always expect it to be tough playing away in the hex. That is especially true in Azteca. In my view, Mexico playing at home has one of the biggest home-field advantages in all of sports. That seems true this campaign as they've struggled away from home but remained as dominant as usual at home: Mexico are 8-0-0 at home with 21 goals for and only 4 against. In the hex they are 5-0-0 with 7 goals for and 2 against. El Salvador have struggled on the road with just 2 wins, 1 draw and 6 losses in all of qualifying. Their wins are over the footballing powerhouses Anguilla and Suriname. Their draw is against Haiti. In the hex the El Salvadorians have lost all 5 matches away from home.

Form and Injuries:
It's a bit odd to talk about form for internationals, but it seems relevant because these teams have gone in completely different directions recently. On June 6th, El Salvador beat Mexico 2-1. Since then Mexico have done nothing but win. They defeated Trinidad and Tobago as well as the United States 2-1, they won 0-3 against Costa Rica and their last match was a 1-0 win over Honduras. El Salvador have struggled, but did pick up a win last month. After beating Mexico they lost 1-0 to both Honduras and Trinidad and Tobago. They then lost 2-1 to the US in Utah. Their last match they turned it around with a 1-0 win at home against Costa Rica.

I don't believe either team has any injury problems.

PLM Prediction

The PLM has Mexico winning 69.6% of the time, El Salvador 6.7% and a draw the other 23.6%. Due to the home-field discussion above and that El Salvador are practically eliminated, I think Mexico have a better chance than that - as high as 90% to win I'd say if I had to guess. The PLM says that 1-0 and 2-0 are the most likely scorelines. I'll say Mexico win comfortably, 3-0.

Costa Rica - Trinidad and Tobago

Home Field

Before the Mexico match last month, I could have written something pretty similar to what I did for Mexico above. After the 0-3 loss, Costa Rica now have a home record of 7-0-1 in all qualifying matches with 19 goals for and 4 against. In the final round their record is 3-0-1 with 6 goals for and 4 against. For the whole campaign T&T have a 2-2-4 record with 9 goals for and 15 against. In the hex they are 0-1-3 with 4 goals for and 11 against.

Form

Trinidad and Tobago's results have been pretty consistently bad, Costa Rica appear to be in free fall. Since winning at T&T in June, Costa Rica have lost three in a row. What's worse, twice they were crushed and the other loss was against a relatively weak El Salvador side. They went down 4-0 at Honduras and got beat 0-3 versus Mexico before losing 1-0 in El Salvador.

To make matters worse for the Ticos, they look to be without midfielder Celso Borges due to injury and defender Gilberto Martinez due to suspension for skipping out on practice to go the beach! My source for that is the oft-cited Soccer By Ives.

PLM Predictions

The model predicts a winning probability of 75.8% for Costa Rica, 5.9% for Trinidad and Tobago with an 18.3% chance of a draw. To be honest, I think it's tough to say how far it is off based on the factors above. Costa Rica have been struggling and have injuries, but Trinidad and Tobago have nothing to play for. If I had to guess I'd say those things wash out and the predictions are pretty close. According to the PLM, the most likely outcome is 2-0 for Costa Rica. That seems like a good prediction to me.

Honduras - United States of America

Home Field

I'm repeating myself a fair bit here, but the advantage home sides have in CONCACAF is a point difficult to overemphasize. In all qualifying matches, Honduras have a perfect 8-0-0 record with 22 goals for and 3 against. In the four hex matches they have 12 goals for and just two against. The US have a 4-1-3 record in all qualifying matches, but 3 of those wins are against Barbados, Cuba and Guatemala in earlier rounds. In the final round they have 1 win, 1 draw and 2 losses with 5 goals for and 7 against. Despite that record not looking stellar, it actually is good compared to the other teams. Getting a point per match is a big reason that the US find themselves top of the table and on the verge of clinching a trip to South Africa.

Form

There's not much to write about here. Since the two teams played in June, Honduras have won 3 out of 4 matches with the only blemish a 1-0 loss in Mexico City. The US have done the same, winning their other three matches and losing by a goal in Mexico.

Injuries

The big injury story is that the US will be without Clint Dempsey who has a shoulder sprain. It is up in the air who will replace him. For updates on that situation, I again recommend Ives's blog.

I'm aware of no injuries to Honduras.

(Edit: I missed two suspensions for Honduras - midfielders Amado Guevara and Danilo Turcios. Both are starters. Guevara should be familiar to American fans as he is a regular for Toronto FC in the MLS and played the whole game in the Honduras 2-1 loss in Chicago. Turcios came on as a second-half sub in that match. I should also have mentioned that star forward David Suazo will be returning from injury and though he will almost certainly play, may not be 100%. Thanks to 2+2er mmbt0ne for the corrections.)

PLM Predictions

The model predicts a 53.8% chance of victory for Honduras, 14.8% for the United States and 31.5% chance of a draw. The most likely outcome is a 1-0 win for Honduras. I personally think the loss of Dempsey is a pretty big blow for the US. Because the model does not take it into account, I think the Hondurans' chances should probably be higher and the Americans' lower. I'll predict a hard-fought 2-1 win for Honduras.

Overall Prediction and a Look Ahead

My picks, and those of the objective PLM, point to Mexico clinching Saturday while the US, Honduras and Costa Rica are forced to battle for the last two automatic spots next Wednesday. Saturday night check back here for an update and a preview of Wednesday's matches. In the meantime, I'll be posting similar previews for the other confederations.

CONCACAF World Cup Qualifying - 7 Down 3 to Go

As I said in my previous article on CONCACAF qualification, the Mexico win over Costa Rica has changed things drastically. The United States and Honduras took care of business so it is now all-but officially a four-team race for the three automatic spots.

Here is the table:



Honduras are currently top and also rate the best according to the Poisson model at both scoring and defending. Costa Rica are now really in a lot of trouble as far as finishing in the top 3. Their loss took them from the most likely CONCACAF team to make it to the top 4 team least likely to get in. Not only did they allow Mexico to go even with them on points, but by losing 0-3 they put themselves in really bad shape in the pretty likely event of a tie on points. They are currently 5 goals behind in goal differential - the first tiebreaker if teams are level on points. The United States got a very important win and moved into second. Unfortunately for them, the Costa Rica loss meant that instead of the win putting the Americans in fantastic shape it prevented them from being in really bad shape. Mexico obviously look a lot better than they did last week and are on a run that resembles the Mexico of old more than what we'd seen earlier in qualification.

The schedule is pretty important. Here are the remaining matches for the top four:

Honduras:
at Mexico
vs the United States
at El Salvador

United States:
at Trinidad and Tobago
at Honduras
vs Costa Rica

Mexico:
vs Honduras
vs El Salvador
at Trinidad and Tobago

Costa Rica:
at El Salvador
vs Trinidad and Tobago
at the United States

Mexico and Costa Rica have the easiest schedules as they play both El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago. Honduras appears to have the hardest schedule with both Mexico away and the United States at home. The US schedule is in between with no easy fixtures.

Poisson Predictions:

These predictions are based on the version where I use only results from this World Cup qualification campaign.

Honduras

Offensive Rank: 1st
Defensive Rank: 1st
Top 3 Finish: 87.3%
4th-Place Finish: 12.6%
Qualification (50% chance in playoff): 93.6%
Change: +2.3% (net, not as a percent of old chance)

Mexico

Offensive Rank: 3rd
Defensive Rank: 2nd
Top 3 Finish: 86.3%
4th-Place Finish: 13.3%
Qualification: 92.9%
Change: +27.6%

United States

Offensive Rank: 2nd
Defensive Rank: 3rd
Top 3 Finish: 83.0%
4th-Place Finish: 16.9%
Qualification: 91.4%
Change: +0.6%

Costa Rica

Offensive Rank: 4th
Defensive Rank: 5th
Top 3 Finish: 43.2%
4th-Place Finish: 54.8%
Qualification: 70.6%
Change: -24.0%

Trinidad and Tobago and El Salvador have just a combined 1.4% chance at making it. As I said in previous articles, I think either would be a serious underdog in a playoff. I'd put there combined chances at more like half a percent. With the 50% assumption, they lost 6.5% combined relative to what was predicted before Saturday's matches.

As you can see, Costa Rica's chances took a massive hit. Mexico gained all of that equity and then some and Honduras gained a bit. The US essentially treaded water.

Wedenesday's Matches:

El Salvador - Costa Rica
Poisson Predictions:
El Salvador win: 46%
Draw: 28%
Costa Rica win: 26%

This match is very important for Costa Rica. Getting a win would pull them out of fourth - two or three points ahead of Mexico or Honduras depending on how things go in Mexico City. With a draw they would pull even with one of those teams, but as I said even won't be good enough in the end because they are so far behind in goal differential. This is somewhat the opposite of Saturday's matchup with Mexico - winning is very important, but a draw isn't much better than a loss. If the Ticos win then, without knowing the results of the other matches, they will jump up all the way to about 79% to finish in the top 3 and 89% overall. A draw drops this to 38.5% and 69% and a loss to 26% and 61%. (note: As I've done before and will do in the future unless otherwise noted, I'm using 0-0 as the scoreline for a draw and either 1-0 or 0-1 for a win. Also, all probabilities are without knowing the results of other Wedensday matches and assuming 50% in a playoff.).

In short, with a win Costa Rica return to a solid position where they are likely to automatically qualify. Anything less and they are more likely than not to finish in 4th and play for their lives against a South American team.

Trinidad and Tobago - United States
T&T win: 34%
Draw: 26%
USA win: 40%

As far as the importance of the match, the US is in a pretty similar spot to where they were before Saturday's game. That's bad news I suppose since they're now playing away. The 4th-place team after Wednesday's games will have at most 13 points. With a win the US would go 3 full points clear with only two matches to go, which would be huge. In that spot, my model predicts that they finish in the top 3 with 93.7% probability and qualify overall 96.8% of the time. A draw is not much better than a loss. With a draw I have them at 79.7% to finish in the top 3 and 89.8% overall. A loss would drop them to 72.9% to go automatically and 86.3% overall.

Mexico - Honduras
Mexico win: 50%
Draw: 26%
Honduras win: 24%

For the third straight matchday, Mexico will be involved in the most important game. The importance of this match for each team is difficult to overstate. If Mexico win then they go two clear of Honduras going into their last two matches against the two worst teams. If Honduras win then they go four points clear of Mexico and would guarantee qualification with a win either against the US at home or at El Salvador. A draw doesn't seem good for either of them; it may put Mexico in 4th two points out of third and Honduras would be stay just a point clear of fourth and put their October 10th match at home against the US decently in the must-win column if they want to avoid the playoff. On the other hand, it would be beneficial for both in the event that Costa Rica either get a draw or lose at El Salvador.

According to the model, if Mexico win then they are 97.25% to finish in the top 3 and 98.6% overall with the usual assumption of a coin flip in the playoff. A draw is far less comfortable - 81.9% for automatic and 90.7% overall. A loss complicates things - they'd be at 67.6% automatic and 83.2% overall. For comparison purposes, that's almost exactly the same probability as not rolling a six if you roll a die. For Honduras, a win puts them at a 99.1% chance at finishing in the top 3. A draw reduces this to 91.3%, with a 95.6% likelihood of qualifying overall. A loss would dramatically increase their chances of finishing fourth - they'd be at 79.9% to finish in the top 3 and 89.9% overall.

For both teams a win puts them in as close to a lock, and a draw is significantly better than a loss.

How much does this match affect the US and Costa Rica? Not a lot actually. US fans will be happy to learn that the best outcome for the Americans is a Mexico loss. Leaving the other matches' results as unknown, the US has an 86.2% chance of a top-3 finish with an Honduras win, an 83.6% chance with a draw and an 80.9% chance with a Mexico win. For Costa Rica it's basically the same, but they are close to indifferent between a Mexico win and a draw - their chances of a top-3 finish are 46.6% if Honduras win, 43.0% if it's a draw and 41.9% if Mexico win.

Discussion Elsewhere

If I happen to come across articles elsewhere that I think my readers would enjoy I'll post them either separately or within my post if it's on the same topic.

Soccer by Ives is a great source, particularly for information related to soccer in the United States or American players abroad. He has written a very good article that is obviously much more concise and better written than what you see here. He makes some great points - most notably that the US' last match against Costa Rica is now almost certain to be important for both teams and that anything but a win Wednesday means the US would likely go into Honduras next month needing a result.

CONCACAF World Cup Qualification - take 2

If you haven't read the original article on CONCACAF World Cup qualification, I would recommend reading that first as this is a follow-up.

A common issue when using results to create rankings or make predictions is which results to include. Obviously I should include all results from the current qualification campaign. Including all rounds there have been 97 matches involving 35 teams. It's less clear what to do with qualifying matches for the 2006 World Cup, qualifying and the finals for the 2007 and 2009 Gold Cup and friendlies. I will be exploring this more scientifically in the future. For now I'll present the qualification probabilities for three versions - just using qualification results, including all 2007 and 2009 Gold Cup results, and including them but giving them only 50% weight.

The main difference between the predictions using just the qualification and either version including Gold Cup results is Mexico. Compared to the Gold Cups, or previous World Cup qualification campaigns for that matter, Mexico have performed quite poorly thus far in World Cup qualifying. In the two Gold Cups they reached the final, including a 0-5 thrashing of the United States at Giants Stadium. In qualifying, however, they have been mediocre and sit with 3 wins, all at home, and 3 losses, all on the road. The other five teams have had pretty similar results when you compare the Gold Cup and World Cup qualifying. So including the Gold Cup causes Mexico to look a lot better and hence be more likely to qualify.

Here are two tables. The first gives the percentage chance of each team finishing in the top 3 of the hex if you take just the qualification matches, include those of the Gold Cup but with only 50% weight and the last column gives the percentages including them in full. The second table gives the percentages for each team of qualifying overall if you assume that the CONCACAF team in the playoff has a 50/50 shot at advancing against the 5th team from CONMEBOL. I think that's a bit generous as the South American team should be a small favorite over most any of these teams, but it's a decent estimate for the top four teams; El Salvador and T&T would both be significant underdogs should they happen to make the playoff.





As you can see, Mexico is assigned a significantly better chance overall if you include the Gold Cup results into the model. Doing so doesn't affect Costa Rica much, probably because they are three points clear of Mexico. It effectively eliminates El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago since the most plausible scenario that puts them through is edging out the Mexicans for fourth place in the group. For the US and Honduras, it reduces their chances of a top-3 finish by around 10% and a little under 5% for qualification overall. I think that Honduras is less impacted by the change because they are more likely to finish ahead of the US given that they are even on points and the US plays in Honduras October 10th. Also, because home field-advantage has been so important in qualification, it was not as big in Gold Cup qualifying, or for the US in the finals. Thus, including those results puts less importance on playing at home when predicting what will happen in the last four games. Even though Mexico looks stronger on paper when you include the Gold Cup results, the smaller benefit for the home team makes Honduras's match in Azteca look less daunting.

I don't have a perfect answer for what should be included. It boils down to how indicative you think results are from the Gold Cup of how well a national side will play in future World Cup qualifying matches. The problem is that most teams did not bring their best teams to the Gold Cup, especially in the 2009 version. For example, if you compare the lineups from the 2009 Gold Cup final, played July 26th, and the qualifying match, played August 8th, the US had only one player start both and Mexico six. The US opted to send their best team to the Confederations Cup and a B team to the Gold Cup. Brian Ching (IMUA!), who did not make the Confederations Cup squad due to injury, was the only national-team regular to play in the Gold Cup. The Mexican squad was more mixed, but it was far from their best and they clearly had objectives that went beyond winning the Gold Cup.

The Gold Cup happens every other year and seems to cycle so that the year after the World Cup it is more highly contested. This is likely because the winner there gets sent to the Confederations Cup, which is not true for the edition the year before the World Cup. The 2007 version was no exception and the national sides in it were more competitive. Thus, results from that version should be pretty indicative of qualification results. On the other hand, it took place two years ago, with some qualification matches taking place in 2006. I am not including the results from qualifying for Germany ’06 because I think that teams have changed enough in four years that those results don't say much about today, and it's going to be pretty similar looking back two or three years. I do think it is more reasonable to include the 2007 Gold Cup because the World Cup often serves as a cutoff with coaching changes and players retiring from international football frequently happening shortly after the World Cup ends.

If I had to guess, I'd say that the predictions excluding all Gold Cup results are probably the closest. There is good reason to exclude the results from either Gold Cup and I think even giving each half weight is probably too much. If I were the gambling type, I'd probably use the percentages somewhere between the first and second columns of the above tables, going closer to the No GC numbers than those in the GC-half column. Looking at Mexico in particular, my subjective view is that they have not looked very good in qualifying and I think those results are more indicative of their ability to get results going forward than those from either Gold Cup. Having said that, one of the major points of this blog is to objectively look at results, which is why I have presented the probabilities for the other two versions.

World Cup Qualification - CONCACAF

How It Works

After 3 preliminary rounds, the final round (where we are now) follows a league format with six teams, commonly referred to as the hex. All teams play each other twice, once in each country. As usual, three points are given for a win, one for a draw and none for a loss. The top three teams advance to the World Cup finals in South Africa. The fourth-place team has a playoff with the fifth-place team from CONMEBOL (South America).

Breaking Ties

Should teams be equal on points, the first two tie breakers are goal difference (goals scored minus goals conceded) and goals scored in all matches. If two or more teams have the same points, goal difference and goals scored then they are sorted by points and if necessary goal difference and then goals scored restricting attention only to matches involving those teams.

Where the Group Is Now

The current table, with all teams having played 6 out of 10 matches, looks like this:



Costa Rica are two points clear at the top with 12 points, Honduras and the USA are even with 10, Mexico have 9 and El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago have some work to do with 5 points each. Each team has played every other team at least once. Curiously, the top pair of teams, the middle two teams and bottom two teams have played each other twice so broadly speaking the schedule favors the teams at the top.

The first thing that jumps out at me is that there is a lot more parity than usual. Only 7 points separate the top team in the group from the bottom and you can't really argue that one or two teams are dominating. For comparison, here is the table this many matches into qualifying for Germany 2006:



(note: I'm using the current tiebreakers, which are different than 2006. In 2006, Costa Rica were ahead of Guatemala because they beat Guatemala in their only meeting to that point)

Four years ago the US and Mexico dominated the hex. At this stage, the US had lost 2-1 to Mexico in Azteca but won their other 5 matches. Including the win over the US, Mexico won 5 out of their first 6 matches and got a draw in the other. Oddly enough, Mexico's only blemish was against Panama, by far the weakest team in the group. They were terrible and went on to lose their last four matches finishing with two draws and eight losses in the final qualifying round. This year there are no teams that have gotten similar results to Mexico, the US or, at the other end of the spectrum, Panama four years ago. Only 7 points separate the top and bottom compared to 14 points last time around at this stage. Panama was effectively eliminated four years ago. While it isn't likely that either goes through (see below), it's certainly possible for El Salvador or Trinidad and Tobago to make it. At the top, the US and Mexico were so dominant in qualification for the 2006 finals that if you kept the 2-0 win over Mexico by the US that would come later and gave both of them a one-goal loss in all of their other remaining matches then both teams still would have gone through! This year even Costa Rica at the top of the table aren't completely safe.

Looking not at the table but the results, another thing that sticks out is that playing at home has been huge. Thus far in the final round, the home team has won 14 matches, drawn 3 and only once has the away team gotten a win. That honor belongs to Costa Rica for their 2-3 win over Trinidad and Tobago. This means that home teams are averaging an astounding 2.5 points per match with away teams eeking out a scant one-third of a point. This again is different from qualifying for the 2006 finals. Then home teams went 20-4-6 (W-D-L) and averaged 2.13 points per match while away teams averaged 0.73 points in their matches. Naturally, scoring follows a similar pattern. A total of 37 goals have been scored by home teams and 14 by the visitors. That averages out to 2.06 goals for the home team and 0.78 for the away team. Four years ago, home teams scored at a rate of 1.9 goals per game and conceded 0.87. This goes hand in hand with the previous paragraph - weaker teams have been much better able this time around to get good results even against stronger teams, especially at home.

Poisson Predictions

I plugged all the results from the current CONCACAF World Cup qualifying campaign into the Poisson model. Using these results it comes up with a scoring and conceding stat for each team as well as a number that represents the benefit of playing at home. These can be used to simulate results for matches that haven't taken place to determine the likelihood of qualification for each team. In the next article, I will discuss adding in results from the 2007 and 2009 Gold Cups. Doing this changes the predictions and I don't want to muddy this article with that discussion.

Based only on 2010 qualifying results, here is a chart giving the percentage chance of advancing for each team.



The first numbered column gives the percentage chance of qualifying by being in the top 3 of the group. For example, it indicates that the US has about an 83% chance of finishing in first, second or third in the group. Finishing in the top three automatically sends a team to South Africa next summer. The next column gives the percentage chance of finishing in fourth place. Finishing there forces the team to win a playoff against the fifth-place team from South America. The last column is the chance that the team finishes in fifth or sixth, completely eliminating them from the competition.

Here is a quick breakdown for each team.

Costa Rica

The ticos have performed well and find themselves in great shape three points clear of Mexico in fourth place. According to the model they are the best attacking team but second-worst defensively in the hex. It would take a fair collapse to fall out of the top three and finishing in the bottom two is extremely unlikely. I give them about a 90% chance to finish in the top three and a 10% chance of finishing fourth putting their chance of qualification in the 94-95% range. The key for their next match, September 5th at home against Mexico, is not to lose. A Mexico win would put the two teams even on points, most likely a point behind both Honduras and the United States. If Costa Rica win then they are essentially in - they would have a 98% chance of a top-three finish according to the model. A draw is fine, but does decrease their chances to 84% of qualifying automatically and about a 15% chance of finishing in fourth. So their overall chances drop, but just a few percent. A home loss to Mexico on the other hand lowers their chances drastically - 64% for the top 3 and 34% for fourth. That means roughly an 80% shot of making it to South Africa, a drop in likelihood of about 15%. Preventing Mexico from gaining on them is pretty important here.

Honduras

Honduras just edges out the US as the second-most-likely team from CONCACAF to reach the World Cup finals. According to the model they are the best team defensively and third best at scoring. They have about an 84% chance of finishing in the top three and a 15% chance of finishing fourth for roughly a 90-91% chance of making it to South Africa. Their next match is against Trinidad and Tobago at home. There aren't many great chances to get three points and this is pretty easily their best shot to do so in their last four matches. Their odds reflect this: if they win then they go through in the top three 88% of the time, while a draw lowers this to 70%. If they somehow lose then their chance of a top-3 finish falls all the way to 57%. The schedule probably adds even more importance to getting a win than the Poisson model suggests. If they just get a draw on September 5th against T&T then four days later they will go into Azteca stadium at most two points clear and possibly in fourth place if Mexico manage a win in San Jose. It's tough enough to play in Mexico City as it is, but going in feeling like you need a result is a very tough task.

United States

The model has the US as the second-best team at both scoring and defending. While the results have not been as strong as usual, the Americans find themselves in great position to go through with about an 83% chance of qualifying automatically and a 15% chance of finishing fourth and playing against a South American team for a spot. Like Honduras, that means they have around a 90 or 91% chance to play in South Africa next summer. The similarities with Honduras don’t end there. The next US match is September 5th against El Salvador in Utah. It is vital that they do not squander their best remaining opportunity for three points. A win against El Salvador puts them at 90% to finish in the top 3 with the other 10% being their chances of finishing fourth - about a 95% chance of qualifying. Getting just a point drops the US to a 71% chance of a top 3 finish and a 27% chance of finishing fourth - about an 84% chance of making it to South Africa for a drop of over 10 percent. A loss would not only be embarrassing but it would lower the Americans' chances to 56% for a top 3 finish and 34% of finishing fourth - good for roughly a 72% chance of reaching the finals. In other words, a win and they are in fantastic shape and anything less leaves things a bit murky. On September 9th they travel to Trinidad and Tobago, a match that is also winnable. With a win against El Salvador, the US should be able to pretty much wrap things up with a win in Port of Spain.

Given the US-Mexico rivalry, a natural question is how much of a blow the 2-1 loss to Mexico was. The answer is not all that much - it cost them about 12% equity for a top 3 finish and a little under 7% overall. In other words, the model currently predicts that the US will qualify automatically 83.3% of the time and finish in fourth 15% for about a 91% chance to qualify. Had the US held on for the 1-1 draw they would be sitting pretty with a 95.7% chance of a top-three finish and a 4% chance of finishing fourth for a qualification percentage of roughly 98%. The difference between the two is 12.4% for automatic qualification and 7% overall. Giving Mexico 3 points pulled them that much closer, making it a fair bit more likely that they finish over the US, forcing the Americans to play against a South American team for qualification. Even so, the US is still in great shape to finish in the top 3 and will most likely finish above Mexico so it wasn’t all that important.

Mexico

Mexico have been pretty disappointing by historical standards and downright mediocre in their qualifying matches. They rate as the fourth best team in both attacking and defending. They narrowly beat Trinidad and Tobago 2-1 at home, lost at El Salvador 2-1 and lost by two goals away against both Honduras (3-1) and the United States (2-0). Despite these lackluster results, they find themselves in decent shape to qualify - although they likely will need to best the fifth-place South American team to do so. The model claims that they have a 41% chance of finishing in the top 3 and a 50% chance of finishing fourth. That puts them somewhere around 65% to make it to South Africa. Getting a result in their match on September 5th at Costa Rica would be quite beneficial. If they get a draw then their chance of a top-3 finish goes up to 47% and their overall chance of making it goes up 5% to 70%. A loss on the other hand drops them to a 29.5% shot at automatic qualification and about 58.5% overall. Should they get a win then they are in great shape with a 78% chance of a top-3 finish and about an 88% chance overall. It is a key match at this stage and given likely wins by the US and Honduras, a loss by Mexico would put them 4 points out of third place. There isn’t a lot of room for them to slip up, and they most likely will have to win out if they lose in San Jose.

The win over the US was a lot more important to Mexico than the loss was for the US. Had they failed to break the 1-1 deadlock, they would have only about a 17% chance of a top 3 finish to go with a 60% chance of finishing fourth. Giving them even odds to win in a playoff that would put them at a 47% chance to make it. With the win against the US they increased their chances to about 41% to go through automatically and 50% of a playoff for a 66% chance of qualifying overall. In short, getting all three points against the US made Mexico about 24% more likely to qualify automatically and 19% more overall. So you could say that while the loss wasn't very bad for the US, they missed out on a great opportunity to seriously damage Mexico's chances by not getting a draw.

El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago

I'll cover them together because they are in very similar situations. Both are really up against it. It would definitely be a surprise if either made it, but stranger things have happened. Both have about a 1% chance of finishing in the top 3. El Salvador is rated a bit higher with close to a 7% chance of finishing fourth while the islanders are looking at just under 4%. Given that both would be significant underdogs in a playoff against the 5th South American team, I'd say each of these teams qualifies two or three times out of a hundred. El Salvador plays at the United States while Trinidad and Tobago plays at Honduras. If either can somehow get an upset win they would increase their chance of qualification to close to 15%. On the other hand if they get the expected result and lose then their already slim chances would be cut in half.

Conclusion

We essentially have the top 4 teams battling it out to determine which three go through to the finals automatically with the odd-man out forced to play a home-and-home with a South American team. Based on the results of this qualification round, Mexico is the favorite for that fourth spot, getting it about half the time. The next matchday is very important for all four teams, with Mexico traveling to Costa Rica and the US and Honduras playing weak opponents at home. If Mexico can manage a win or the US and/or Honduras fail to win then things will change fairly drastically.