Very tough loss today against Belgium. We were winning for pretty much the entire game, but things fell apart in the final minute or so.
The enthusiasm decision was a tough one. We ended up using normal, and Belgium crunched us. Using a crunch at this stage has a cost, as it results in going to world's with an enthusiasm disadvantage. The teams that already qualified for world's start with 5 enthusiasm, and it isn't ideal to put ourselves in a situation where we start with only 3 or 4 enthusiasm. The idea was to go for a win with a normal, and while we came very close, it didn't work out. Perhaps we should have crunched and taken the enthusiasm hit, but we tried to avoid that, and Belgium ended up taking advantage.
The rest of the season, we will be playing the consolation round. The highest finishing team from the Americas will host the continental qualifiers next season. There is a lot of competition for us this season, as all the teams from the Americas lost in the repechage just now; Brasil, Chile, and Uruguay are joining us. We all have default 0-2 records (due to playing in the repechage). Some other good teams, like Peru, have a head start on us, and are 2-0 at the moment.
The schedule has been set, and ours is fairly difficult, with three tough road games (Israel, Hong Kong, and Latvia). We also play three home games (Bosnia, Iran, Al Jazair). We likely need at least 5 wins to stay in the hunt for home court advantage, and with the schedule we have, it won't be easy.
Next week, we get started with a home game against Bosnia i Hecegovina, which will be played at 7:00 PM EST.