The United States plays in the soccer world’s cupcake federation.

Concacaf, the North and Central American and Caribbean federation, is guaranteed three berths in the World Cup, and the Americans should earn one of those three berths Every Single Time.

After Mexico, the only Concacaf side that can be anticipated to be reasonably competitive is Costa Rica.

Even if those two qualify for the World Cup in a given quadrennium … the U.S. can still get to the main event by qualifying ahead of the likes of Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Honduras, usually the strongest (or least-weak) of Concacaf’s leftovers.

And now, apparently, we need to add Guatemala to that list of semi-credible opponents.

The American streak of seven consecutive appearances in the World Cup finals, going back to 1990, is in real jeopardy following a limp, 2-0 loss to Guatemala tonight in Guatemala City.

And even before we weigh up What Needs to Be Done … we must stop and ask ourselves:

Is a humiliating exit in the second-to-last Concacaf qualifying round an acceptable price to pay … if it means coach Jurgen Klinsmann is fired?

This is an idea worth exploring.

Klinsmann has not moved U.S. soccer forward in any meaningful way since taking over from the American coach Bob Bradley in 2011.

Bradley took a U.S. team to the last 16 of a World Cup, in 2010, where his team lost in extra time. He won one Gold Cup championship and was runner-up in two others — the second of which got him fired and replaced by Klinsmann.

The German took a U.S. team to the last 16 of a World Cup, in 2014. He won one Gold Cup championship and was fourth in another, last year.

(For that matter, Bruce Arena, Bradley’s predecessor, took a U.S. team to the quarterfinals of a World Cup and won two Gold Cups.)

Klinsmann has a handful of outwardly impressive victories over European sides in friendly matches, which are little noted nor long remembered in Europe, but he is beginning to have some real trouble with Concacaf “rivals”.

The U.S. lost to Jamaica in the semifinals of the Gold Cup, last year, lost to Panama in the third-place match to finish fourth.

Klinsmann and the U.S. then lost the one-off playoff with Mexico 3-2 in October, in Los Angeles, for a place in the Fifa Confederations Cup in Russia, next year.

In the current round of qualifying, his team drew with Trinidad & Tobago, beat St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and now has lost to Guatemala — for the first time in World Cup qualifying and the first time in any sort of match since 1989, pre-history in U.S. soccer.

At the moment, the U.S. is third in the four-team group, and only the top two go to the hexagonal final round.

To keep control of their destiny, the Americans need to defeat Guatemala in Columbus on Tuesday. That would give them seven points to Guatemala’s six. A draw will not do.

The six-game round includes two more matches — away to St. Vincent on September 2, and home against T&T on September 6.

It is not always recalled, but the U.S. job is only Klinsmann’s third as a coach.

He seemed more cheerleader than coach as Germany finished third at the 2006 World Cup, played in Germany, where the Germans could be expected to win. That was considered a success, still.

He led Bayern Munich for most of the 2008-o9 season, before a quarterfinal Champions League exit against Barcelona and poor league form (third place, and at risk of failing to qualify for the next Champions League), cost him his job with five games left in his first season.

Wrote the English newspaper The Guardian: “With his reformist agenda dead, an embarrassing over-dependence on Frank Ribery and a public falling-out with key players, Klinsmann leaves with his credibility irreparably damaged.”

Not damaged enough, though, to keep U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati from hiring him two years later.

What has Klinsmann done for the U.S. team? He has belittled Major League Soccer at every turn, capriciously left Landon Donovan off the 2014 World Cup team (a costly self-indulgence) and loaded the squad with quasi-American players who had previously played for German youth teams and who had trouble integrating into the U.S. side.

Now, Klinsmann faces the possibility that he cannot do what Bradley, Arena, Steve Sampson, Bora Milutinovic and Bob Gansler did before him without fail — lead the U.S. to the World Cup finals.

And it is not as if this is some gutty little team punching above its weight. The U.S. has 320 million people, a successful (despite Klinsmann’s sniping) domestic league and lots and lots of money — creating the ability to pay the German’s base salary of at least $2.5 million annually, the most in U.S. soccer history.

Would the pain and embarrassment at going out in this round, behind T&T and Guatemala, be canceled out by the knowledge that Klinsmann almost certainly would be fired the night of September 6?

I’m thinking “yes”.

Hell, yes.

Then Gulati can get on with hiring an experienced coach, preferably an American.

There is a solid candidate out there, who coached Egypt’s national team in a time of upheaval, took the Norwegian side Stabaek to the Europa League and has French club Le Havre a point away from promotion to Ligue 1 and is still only 58 years old.

His name? Bob Bradley.