With leagues around the world taking a break for World Cup qualifiers, a fair share of big time national teams stumbled against supposedly inferior opponents.

Starting close to home, the US Men's National Team lost to Guatemala in a World Cup qualifier for the first time ever. Right out the gate, the Americans were not as sharp as they needed to be, allowing two goals within the first 15 minutes of play. After that they were never able to recover and ended up losing by those two goals, 2-0. 

Somewhat luckily, the US immediately have another shot at Guatemala, with a rematch set for Tuesday the 29th in Columbus, Ohio. USA team captain Michael Bradley characterized the game perfectly saying, "it’s a game where we have to win.”

Simply put, yes they do have to win. Thus far in the group stage the American team has been less than stellar to say the least. With the first half of matches done, and having faced each opponent once, they sit in third place of a relatively weak group.

Trinidad and Tobago sit atop the group, three points ahead of the US with seven and one ahead of second-place Guatemala. Apart from the loss to Guatemala, the USA has tied with Trinidad and stomped out St. Vincent and the Grenadines. 

Naturally, national team manager Jurgen Klinsmann has come under a good amount of heat. However he has been in this position before, in 2012 they dropped their first group stage match to Jamaica. Of course the Americans recovered to get into the tournament and advance out of the group stage of the World Cup finals in Brazil. 

Hopefully they can do the same this time around. Their deficit isn't insurmountable by any means, but their performance has been uninspiring at best, which is far below standard for this team.

On the other side of the pond, Spain faced a minnow in their own World Cup qualifying group. Like the USA, they could not come away from their match against Romania with three points, finishing the match in a goalless draw, 0-0.

However, there was the positive of the performance of veteran captain and goal keeper Iker Casillas. Obviously, he came away with a clean sheet, but he had many critical saves that harkened back to days past. Though Casillas will always be remembered as a legend, his legend has waned in recent years, with many fans questioning his continued inclusion in the starting XI for the Spanish national team. 

Though with this performance, he may have bought him some time.

Photo: Flickr/Erik Drost