I don't know the name or identity of this particular player on the United States men's soccer team.
I can say with some degree of certainty that he looks despondent. Most likely after an embarrassing loss to an island nation that many of us living in this country couldn't find on a map or globe of the world.
For the record, the island of Trinidad (according to Wikipedia) is the larger and more populous of the two major islands of Trinidad and Tobago. The island lies nearly 7 miles off the northeastern coast of Venezuela and sits on the continental shelf of South America. Trinidad is also the sixth largest in the West Indies.
The United States men's soccer team needed only needed to win or finish in a tie with this nation's soccer team to qualify for next year's World Cup.
They didn't. The USMNT lost 2-1, thanks in some part to one of the players on the U.S. team kicking the ball into their own goal (Yes, we have the video).
Now what makes this even worse for the USMNT is that the loss to Trindad and Tobago was only one piece of the puzzle. Apparently, in other qualifying matches, Honduras needed to beat Mexico (they did), Panama needed to beat Costa Rica (they did) and there were reports that the skies above another country you don't know how to find needed to turn a crimson-colored shade of hellfire (for all we know, they may have) to force the elimination of our country's soccer team from missing next year's World Cup in Russia.
Apparently, two of those three things happened. Thus, the USMNT will not be in the World Cup next year.
While I'd love to lend a shoulder for fans to lean on so they can weep and mourn about the tragedy of this stinging defeat, I'm afraid I'm just not that invested in this storyline.
The major television networks in this country have gone out of their way to shove international soccer down our collective throats for the better part of a decade.
Between Champions League matches, UEFA matches, there's some sort of La Liga thing we don't know much about, and in some countries, fans of teams like to spark incidents with fans of teams from other nations by throwing ziploc bags full of urine at each other, it's all a big mess that too many of us here on the mainland simply don't have the time to invest in learning more about the international sport.
I understand all of this, as I too cover a sport which could best be described as a fringe-type thing. Meaning that it doesn't have the appeal on a national level that other corporate-friendly sports are given. And it's the same sense of false, phony outrage when a supposed important event doesn't happen in that sport either.
For a moment, American sports fans weep when a horse doesn't win the Triple Crown.
For a moment, American sports fans weep when the nation's hockey team loses at the Winter Games.
For a moment, American sports fans watch a big boxing match. Invariably then, too many people who've never watched a boxing match nor know anything about the rules of the sport, proclaim to have understood every element of what they just witnessed.
To be fair, it works the other way as well.
For a moment, American sports fans cheer for a figure skater, a bobsledder, a hurdler, a shotputter, a diver or a wrestler they've never heard of before and have never watched in any sort of qualifying event.
For a moment, American sports fans will flock to a racetrack to see a Triple Crown winner, only to never come back to that racetrack ever again.
For a moment, American sports fans will watch a NASCAR event.... many of them will either cheer at the sheer madness of watching adults steer and maneuver 3,300 lbs. of steel, flexible glass and rubber at high rates of speed.
Others will cheer for a massive wreck.
Sorry for the loss, fans of United States soccer. Thoughts and prayers, if you will.
If I may, allow me to suggest something to provide you some level of comfort in the coming days.
It's called Major League Baseball. The playoffs are going on right now, the American teams are all pretty good at it (unless of course, if you toss out the first three editions of that World Baseball Classic fiasco and the annual Little League World Series, which American-based teams have lost six times this decade).
So if you need boost that sense of patriotism (since the NFL is still trying to figure out what to do with those pesky kids and their phony outrage), maybe tune in tonight for a ballgame.
America will be better for it.