The World Cup Now and the World Cup Future.

Now is Croatia and France facing off Sunday in Russia for the 2018 championship.

Future is the challenge facing the United States going forward.

The challenge is uncomplicated and complicated at the same time.

Not complicated: Find a way to return to the World Cup after a great big DNQ — Did Not Qualify — this time around.

Complicated: Compete. Do more than simply show up. Find a way, contrary to what the Angels have done with Mike Trout, so you do not squander the immense talent Christian Pulisic brings to the field.

When this time around was mentioned, Loyola Marymount soccer coach Paul Krumpe insisted, “We should have qualified.”

The reasons it did not happen, ranging with weak leadership at the top to too much competition from too many sports, drive everyone up the wall.

Krumpe knows of what he speaks. A star at West Torrance High and at UCLA when the Bruins won an NCAA title, he played on the U.S. national team in the 1990 World Cup. Plus he has established himself as a coach at LMU.

So what about the future for the U.S.?

Instead of looking ahead four years to 2022, when the next World Cup will be in Qatar, Krumpe has a closer target.

“We need to not go four years and not be in a big tournament,” he said.

He was thinking about the 2020 Olympics in Japan.

While the Olympics tournament falls short of World Cup level — rosters are made up of players 23 and younger plus three older than 23 — it does open a door to the future.

“Our young players will be that age,” Krumpe said.

A generation of U.S. players should be coming of age and, if they are, should be ready to establish themselves on the world stage.

Looking at the big picture, what must be done to develop young players?

“The MLS (Major League Soccer) has to do a better job of getting Americans on the fields,” Krumpe said. “They play on the second team. In other parts of the world, young players are put on the first team and challenged.”

He does not give the college game a free pass.

“We’re not doing a great job, either,” he said. “We only have a three-month season, we take a break and then we have a partial two-month season.

“In the rest of the world, players who are from 18 to 20 are playing professionally. Our young players either sign pro and sit or they go to college (and play a limited number of games).

“It’s a dicey situation for a pro coach here. Are you going to sit a $2-million-a-year player and play the kid you’re paying $150,000 a year?”

Not if you want to continue coaching.

“Somehow they have to figure it out,” Krumpe said.

If Croatia and Iceland, which made it to Russia, can figure it out, it’s a head-scratcher that the U.S. is on the outside looking in.

A focal point, perhaps the focal point, will be Christian Pulisic, the 19-year-old out of Hershey, Pa., who plays for Borussia Dortmund in the German Dundesliga, which ranks with England’s Premier League and Spain’s La Liga as one of the top three leagues in the world.

“I really wanted to see him in the World Cup,” Krumpe said. “At that level, it would have been exciting.”

Although individual stars do not guarantee team success – witness departures from the World Cup of Argentina with Lionel Messi and Portugal with Christiano Ronaldo – they do provide a running start.

Pulisic can fill that role.

“I think he’s the best U.S. player ever,” Krumpe said. “He’s better than Landon Donovan.”

Best ever, only 19 and will be 23, presumably heading into his prime, in 2022.

“Landon was special,” Krumpe said.

Donovan, out of Redlands, is universally recognized as the best soccer player developed in the U.S.

“Christian already is better,” Krumpe repeated for emphasis. “The fact that he is in Germany getting challenged is big.”

The fact in the future needs to be Pulisic and the U.S. answering the challenge in the World Cup.

Clearing out the mini-notebook

RIP: The deaths this week of Ken Ravizza, the sports psychologist based in Redondo Beach; Art Hoffman, 91-year-old sports statistician/track meet press chief for promoter Al Franken and son Don, accountant for Hughes Aircraft in El Segundo, etc.; and former Westchester High and UCLA basketball star Billy Knight can for assorted reasons only be classified as sad news. …

The plan: Check all the rosters of all Lakers NBA championship teams, from Minneapolis to Inglewood to Los Angeles, and you will find a solid group of savvy veterans who knew how to play the game on defense as well as offense and understood what to say and when to say it on the court and in the locker room. Magic Johnson and Rob Pelinka are trying to recreate this mix by adding Rajon Rondo, JaVale McGee and Lance Stephenson, along with re-signing Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, to LeBron James’ support crew. …

Bottom line: James not showing up after teasing fans he might be at a store’s pizza party in Culver City was a turnover on his part.

Mike Waldner can be reached at mwsptcol@aol.com