Well look at Honduras team, where those players play, how poor their country is, and how many people live there. The only countries more poor in this hemisphere are Nicaragua and Haiti. There's no excuse whatsoever.
I agree there's no excuse to not qualify, but you are selling Honduras short. They finished 4th at the last Olympics. They often qualify for the World Cup or come very close. They aren't Malta or Faroe Islands. If they played in Europe or South America, they aren't rolling over for France or Argentina 7-0 with regularity.
It's naive to believe we can send out a bunch of players who are not anywhere near our best players against a country that is respectable opposition, and roll them over. That just doesn't happen in international football. Even with the best players qualification is often hard. People make fun of terms like CONCACAF'ed, but CONCACAF is not an easy federation to play in. It's not because the teams are so talented, its because the pitch conditions are terrible, the games are played in 90-100 degree heat, the referees are not very good, and because these Latin American teams are masters of the dark arts, and know how to frustrate the opponent.
I'm not even saying you're wrong about the players we put out there compared to their players, and the size/wealth of the countries, but I feel like this type of mindset gets us into predicaments where we should beat these teams easily on paper, and then we don't. I'm all for general optimism about American soccer, but I feel like too many people expected too much in this Olympic Qualification campaign. It was always going to be hard. There was always going to be a chance we lose by a goal in the important game in circumstances like we did. It might happen the next time. I'm not sure thats reason for alarm though.
