TORONTO -- Just when you thought the mood music around the U.S. team might become more upbeat, they produce a performance whose best accompaniment would have been alarm bells.
Two years and five days on from the Americans' calamitous failure to reach the 2018 World Cup, it is hard to detect many signs of progress and to see a way ahead after the embarrassing 0-2 loss to Canada, the U.S.'s first defeat to its neighbours for 34 years.
It's fair to point out here that the Canadians, ranked 75th in the world by FIFA, are an improving side with two teenage attacking talents in the exciting Alphonso Davies of Bayern Munich and the prolific striker Jonathan David of Gent in Belgium.