U.S. men's soccer team fails to qualify for 2018 World Cup

U.S. men's soccer captain Michael Bradley.
(Image credit: Ashley Allen/Getty Images)

The U.S. men's national soccer team lost to Trinidad and Tobago 2-1 on Tuesday night, dashing the team's dreams of playing in the 2018 World Cup.

This will be the first time since 1986 that the Americans, ranked 28th, won't play in the competition. Trinidad and Tobago, ranked 99th, came into Tuesday night's game having lost eight of its last nine games and tying once. The U.S. needed to tie Trinidad and Tobago to make it to next year's World Cup in Russia, but the team's loss, coupled with Honduras' win over Mexico and Panama defeating Costa Rica, dropped the U.S. team into fifth place during the CONCACAF qualifying tournament.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.