This is when it gets serious for the U.S. men’s soccer team. And this is also when all of those ghastly memories of the 2017 World Cup qualifying cycle, and particularly the end of it, could smack these players right between the eyes.

Only a handful of these players were part of that failure to qualify for the 2018 World Cup, when a loss at last-place Trinidad and Tobago on the final night of qualifiers eliminated the U.S. for the first time since 1986. But everyone in the national team player pool has worn that failure, and the responsibility of rectifying it, throughout the current cycle. Thursday night at Estadio Azteca in Mexico City, against their fiercest regional rival, either they’ll dispose of those memories or risk being haunted by them going forward.

The USA plays Mexico in the first of three matches in seven days, and probably the hardest three matches of the qualifying period: At Mexico, a home game against Panama in Orlando on Sunday, and at Costa Rica next Wednesday. They enter the final three matches with 21 points, tied with Mexico for second place, four points behind first-place Canada and four points clear of fourth-place Panama.

These are the stakes: If the Americans finish in the top three, they are in the field in Qatar. If they finish fourth, they will face an intercontinental playoff against an Oceania team (likely New Zealand) in June for one last spot. And if Panama and fifth-place Costa Rica (16 points) both pass the United States, we’re looking at four more lo-o-ong years for American soccer.

“Qualifying for the World Cup is the absolute minimum,” forward Tyler Adams said on a Zoom call this week. “We have to do that to continue to move the program forward, to give our players the best opportunity to continue to develop and get that international exposure and grow the game in the U.S.

“I think about the responsibility that I have and the responsibility (of) my teammates. We have to qualify. There’s just no other option. And I think that when you’re in big games and important games, you always have to remember what motivates you and what you’re doing it for.”

That raises the stakes Thursday night, even though there’s a train of thought that the Panama game on Sunday is the more crucial (or perhaps more attainable) result. But the rivalry alone should put any thoughts of even the next game on the back burner.

The lore that Azteca is a tough place to play and an impossible place to win? True, but while the Yanks are 1-9-3 there dating to 1980 – the only victory being a 2012 exhibition match – they also haven’t lost there since 2009, earning draws in 2013 and ’17 World Cup qualifiers.

All told, the U.S. has won 17, tied six and lost nine against Mexico going back to 2000 and has a three-game winning streak over El Tri, winning the finals of the Nations Cup in Denver last June and the Gold Cup in Las Vegas in August, and adding the traditional dos a cero victory in the first round of World Cup qualifying in Cincinnati in November.

That Denver game was a victory at altitude, by the way, though Mexico City’s 7,349-foot elevation creates a steeper challenge than Denver’s 5,279. (Pun intended.)

“I think one of the things the guys clearly understand is the type of game it’s going to be, and what it’s going to take to compete and win the game,” coach Gregg Berhalter said in a Zoom session Wednesday. “When you look at our team in those three (recent) wins, you almost see growth in each of those games, culminating in the last one in the qualifier where the guys were really, really confident going into the game.

“So I do think it adds some confidence, but we can’t let our guard down. I mean, our record (in Mexico City) is horrendous. You know, the odds are against us getting something out of this game, right? We know that and we realize that, and that’s just how it is, and we’re focused on going in and being difficult to play against, competing. But we certainly do have confidence from, you know, from how we grew as a team in those three games.”

With that “difficult to play against” line, Berhalter almost sounded like a hockey coach. But maybe that goes back to the mindset he discussed months ago, when he noted that the U.S. players’ main task on the road should be “to come into these countries and ruin everybody’s day.”

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And there seems to be a “next man up” attitude borrowed from that other brand of football. Midfielder Weston McKinnie has a broken foot, fellow midfielder Brenden Aaronson is sidelined with an MCL injury, Sergiño Dest is unavailable with a hamstring issue and goalkeeper Matt Turner has an ankle injury.

LAFC’s Kellyn Acosta will provide versatility, and Gio Reyna – who scored the tying goal in the Nations League victory over Mexico last June – is back from his own hamstring issue, which limited him at Borussia Dortmund. He played a full 90 minutes for the Bundesliga side last weekend.

Thursday’s game could be the end of an era, maybe the last of these high-stakes World Cup qualifiers between these rivals. The U.S., Mexico and Canada will all qualify for the 2026 World Cup as co-host countries, and by 2030, with a projected 48-team field and more qualifiers from CONCACAF, there might be multiple qualifying groups and the Yanks and El Tri might not see each other.

That would be a shame.

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