Tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m. EDT, the U.S. and Mexico will meet in a qualifying match for the 2010 World Cup finals in South Africa. The American men have never won in Mexico City, playing in the smog-filled air of 100,000 seat Azteca Stadium. Indeed the best U.S. result against El Tri was a 1997 World Cup qualifier when the Americans, playing with only 10 men, managed a 0-0 draw.
The match takes on an added importance for Mexico as they are currently fourth in the six team round robin group. The top three finishers all automatically qualify for South Africa while the fourth place club must play a home-and-home series against the fifth place finisher from South America to book passage to South Africa.
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The Mexican side needs a win and potentially anything less could result in the sacking of manager Javier Aguirre. Mexico already fired coach Sven Goren Erickson, who most recently coached the English national team.
Costa Rica currently leads the table in the CONCACAF with 12 points in five matches. The U.S., which lost 3-1 at Costa Rica in June, sits two points back in second. Honduras is third with seven points, one more than Mexico. El Salvador and Trinidad and Tobago round out the group.
Mexico has long dominated CONCACAF — the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Football Associations, but the American side has challenged El Tri for regional supremacy for the past decade. Both teams have qualified for the past four World Cup Finals. Costa Rica has appeared in the previous two finals as well.
The timing of the match is interesting as it comes a mere 17 days after Mexico thrashed the U.S. 5-0 in the finals of the Gold Cup, a biennial tournament. It was the first win for Mexico on American soil against the U.S. in a decade.
Neither country brought its top team to the Gold Cup. The American roster only featured three players that are also on the roster for tomorrow's match. Mexico also fielded a lesser squad, but routed the Americans with five second half goals on a steamy afternoon at Giants Stadium.
The U.S. is coming off a strong second place finish at the Confederations Cup, a dry run tournament in South Africa. The American side upset Spain, 2-0, the then number one ranked team in the world, in the semi-finals, before losing the final to Brazil, 3-2.
The question many soccer observers have been asking is which U.S. side will show up for the match tomorrow? Will it be the underachieving, and defensively porous unit that was pummeled in the Gold Cup or will it be the disciplined and patient side that stopped Spain's 35 game unbeaten streak and that held a two-goal lead at the half against Brazil?
The same question could also be asked of El Tri. Will the team that easily handled the Americans last month show up or will it be the team that only advanced to the final stage of CONCACAF on goal difference against an inferior Jamaica and that tied Panama 1-1 in the Gold Cup?
If you want to follow this match in English, you may have a hard time finding a station. ESPN, which holds the rights to the US MNT's World Cup qualifiers, has a scheduling conflict and the match will air on Mun2 which is is owned by NBC Universal. Spanish language coverage is available on Univision.