The last time the U.S. men's national team faced the long-shot scenario, things didn't work out so well.
The events of October 2017 are well-documented and have been dissected ad nauseam over the last four-plus years. The failure to qualify for the World Cup was very much a foundational issue, but had a series of events not gone the way they did on Oct. 10—an American loss to Trinidad & Tobago, Panama and Honduras wins over Costa Rica and Mexico, respectively—then the U.S. would have still overcome all of those faults and not been eliminated from contention that night.