Eight and a half years ago, when Clint Mathis curled home an immaculate free kick for an unlikely U.S. World Cup qualifying win at Honduras, I was able to watch from my home on pay-per-view.

Though the quality and coverage of the U.S. men’s national team would seem to have made progress in the interim, the situation for Saturday’s qualifier is actually worse than in 2001.

As reported by various outlets, including SoccerByIves, Goal.com, the L.A. Times, Washington Post and New York Times, the U.S.’s World Cup qualifier at Honduras is not available at any American household.

As of Monday afternoon, there are 13 locations nationwide confirmed by U.S. soccer showing the English-language broadcast of the match, and about 200 showing the Spanish-language broadcast. Wherever you go, expect to pay a $15 cover charge.

Among the locations listed as showing the match in Spanish is Club Caribe at 10319 Perrin Beitel. This is the lone Spanish-language broadcast listed in the San Antonio area.

On Monday, U.S. Soccer issued what amounted to an apology, though it had nothing to do with distributing the rights to the game

“The worldwide television rights to each CONCACAF World Cup qualifying match are the property of the hosting nation … against Honduras on October 10, the rights are owned by the Honduras federation, which chose to sell the U.S. television rights, in both English and Spanish, to a company which opted to broadcast via closed circuit feed only. As a result, the match will not be televised by any network or cable channel.”

So how did we get to this point? Well, the The Honduran Federation (which controls the rights because it’s their home game) sold the rights for United States broadcasts in English and Spanish to Spanish firm MediaPro.

From there, the rights could’ve been sold by MediaPro to ESPN, Fox Soccer Channel, NBC Universal, whoever. Descriptions of those negotiations vary (ESPN did apparently make an inquiry about the game with MediaPro), but whoever you want to blame, this is the juncture at which we ideally would’ve been saved.

Either MediaPro asked an exorbitant amount, MediaPro never really intended to go a route besides closed-circuit, or ESPN and their competitors didn’t bid enough. Whatever the case, MediaPro sold to Intergrated Sports Media, which if memory serves, also offered the Honduras game I mentioned from eight years ago. Can’t say why they aren’t again offering an in-home pay-per-view option.

LOOKING AHEAD

Here’s what we have coming up Saturday and Sunday in World Cup qualifying. Matches that could lock up berths for teams without outside help are noted.

ASIA-OCEANIA PLAYOFF, FIRST LEG

New Zealand at Bahrain, 10:30 a.m. Saturday

AFRICA

Egypt at Zambia, 7 a.m. Saturday
Côte d’Ivoire at Malawi, 7:30 a.m. Saturday (Côte d’Ivoire qualifies with a win or a tie)
Togo at Cameroon, 9:30 a.m. Saturday (Cameroon qualifies with a win and a Gabon loss)
Morocco at Gabon, 9:30 a.m. Saturday

Ghana at Benin, 10 a.m. Sunday (Ghana already qualified)
Mozambique at Nigeria, 11 a.m. Sunday
Kenya at Tunisia, 11 a.m. Sunday (Tunisia qualifies with a win and a Nigeria tie or loss)
Burkina Faso at Guinea, noon Sunday
Sudan at Mali, 1 p.m. Sunday
Rwanda at Algeria, 1:15 p.m. Sunday (Algeria qualifies with a win and an Egypt tie or loss)

CONCACAF

El Salvador at Mexico, 5 p.m. Saturday (Mexico qualifies with a win and either a U.S. win or tie or a Costa Rica loss or tie; Mexico also qualifies with a tie and a Costa Rica loss)
Trinidad and Tobago at Costa Rica, 9 p.m. Saturday
United States at Honduras, 9 p.m. Saturday (United States qualifies with a win, or a tie and a Costa Rica tie or loss, or a loss and a Costa Rica loss; Honduras qualifies with a win and a Costa Rica loss)

SOUTH AMERICA

Chile at Colombia, 5 p.m. Saturday (Chile qualifies with a win, and can also qualify with a tie and an Argentina tie or loss)
Uruguay at Ecuador, 5 p.m. Saturday (Ecuador qualifies with a win and an Argentina loss, a Colombia tie or loss and a Venezuela tie or loss)
Paraguay at Venezuela, 5 p.m. Saturday (Paraguay already qualified)
Peru at Argentina, 5 p.m. Saturday

Brazil at Bolivia, 3 p.m. Sunday (Brazil already qualified)

EUROPE

Group 1

Sweden at Denmark, 1 p.m. Saturday (Denmark qualifies with a win)
Hungary at Portugal, 2:45 p.m. Saturday

Group 2

Switzerland at Luxembourg, 11:45 a.m. Saturday (Switzerland qualifies with a win and a Greece-Latvia tie)
Moldova at Israel, 1 p.m. Saturday
Latvia at Greece, 1:30 p.m. Saturday

Group 3

Poland at Czech Republic, 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Slovenia at Slovakia, 1:30 p.m. Saturday (Slovakia qualifies with a win or a tie)

Group 4

Wales at Finland, 9 a.m. Saturday
Germany at Russia, 11 a.m. Saturday (Germany qualifies with a win; Germany and Russia already locked up at least a playoff spot)
Azerbaijan at Liechtenstein, 1 p.m. Saturday

Group 5

Spain at Armenia, 11 a.m. Saturday (Spain already qualified)
Bosnia-Herzegovina at Estonia, 11 a.m. Saturday (Bosnia locks up playoff spot with a win)
Turkey at Belgium, 1:45 Saturday

Group 6

Kazakhstan at Belarus, 10 a.m. Saturday
England at Ukraine, 11:15 a.m. Saturday (England already qualified)

Group 7

Romania at Serbia, 1:30 p.m. Saturday (Serbia qualifies with a win, a tie and a France tie or loss, or a loss and a France loss)
Lithuania at Austria, 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Faroe Islands at France, 2 p.m. Saturday (France locks up playoff spot with a win, a tie and an Austria tie or loss)

Group 8

Georgia at Montenegro, noon Saturday
Bulgaria at Cyprus, 1:30 p.m. Saturday
Italy at Ireland, 3 p.m. Saturday (Italy qualifies with a win or a tie; Ireland locks up playoff sport with a win)