Twenty-eight years before the most humiliating day in U.S. soccer history, and 23 miles away from the spot where confidence unraveled into heartbreak, Paul Caligiuri sent a ball rippling through steamy Trinidadian air and kick-started an unprecedented international soccer ascent.

It became known as The Shot Heard ‘Round The World – a silly moniker, because nobody in the nation most affected by it even saw it, much less heard it. Or at least not many did. Not many cared. But it happened. It sent the United States to its first World Cup in 40 years. And it stimulated one of the most ambitious, far-reaching, long-term projects the sport has ever seen.

Twenty-seven years and 10 months later, the project was chugging along. Twenty-seven years and 11 months later, its main cabin burst into flames. The stench of failure spread throughout that same Trinidadian air. There was no River to Russia to provide reprieve. No silver lining. The United States men’s national team has been eliminated from the 2018 World Cup before it even began.

Before we talk about implications or ramifications or catastrophic consequences, it’s worth noting just how unfathomable a concept this is to so many American soccer fans. An entire soccer-loving generation has been reared not on the possibility of two month-long parties every four years, but on the knowledge that both will occur, and that its national teams will be invited.

It’s an under-appreciated assumption that we’ve been innocent enough to make. Indeed, it’s been a privilege. Only seven nations participated in every men’s World Cup between 1990 and 2014. Only three appeared at every men’s and women’s World Cup in that span. The U.S. was one of the three.

Michael Bradley and the U.S. were left stunned in Trinidad. (Getty) More

And because many middle-aged men and women who currently consume the sport are post-1990 converts, the vast majority of the U.S. soccer fan base has no idea what it feels like to miss a World Cup. Until now, many probably didn’t even consider the possibility.

And yet here we are, stunned, our 19-year-old national treasure in tears, our eyes welling up with him. Our plans for next summer are ruined, our nightmares realized. We are staring at 101 months between our men’s national team’s appearances at World Cups. That’s unthinkable.

It’s worth noting the foreignness of the concept, because nobody really knows what the consequences will be. Heck, a small minority of fans have argued that those consequences will be positive ones. (They are incorrect.)

But we can engage in educated speculation, and educated speculation would lead us to a pretty clear conclusion: The failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup will be damaging for soccer, and particularly men’s soccer, in the United States. It will not be catastrophic or disastrous. But it will be harmful.

Soccer in America has progressed to a point where it does not need a World Cup to survive, or even to sustain long-term growth. But the beneficial offshoots of World Cups are plentiful. Missing out on them will hurt. And there are both strong theoretical claims and evidence to back that up.

If the ultimate goals are thriving professional leagues and world-class national team programs, World Cups contribute to the mission in many ways. Most importantly, they generate interest in the sport. That interest takes many shapes.

First, it inspires youth participation. Members of the current men’s national team have pinpointed 1994 as the experience that hooked them to soccer. Stars of the 2015 World Cup-winning women’s national team have spoken about the galvanizing effect of the 1999 edition. Both the ‘94 and the ‘99 tournaments were held in the U.S., but others, especially given the breadth of TV and online coverage nowadays, replicate those effects, even if to a lesser extent.

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