…until the US-Mexico clash on Wednesday night. I need to say that my excitement is nearly uncontainable. While driving around doing errands with Kyle yesterday, I think he became a bit annoyed with my anticipation.
About this time tomorrow, I’ll be heading down to Columbus with the Motor City Supporters Group to represent Detroit among Sam’s Army and the American Outlaws as we make sure the US gets off to the best possible start in final round qualifying. Although I’ve been to a number of US matches since 1994 this is my first ever match against Mexico – I surprisingly hadn’t realize the fact until yesterday.
With that said I do have experience with a Mexico match. Attending the 2007 Gold Cup semi-finals at Soldier Field in Chicago, me and a friend went to see the US play Canada, but as it was a doubleheader, stayed for the Mexico-Guadeloupe match that followed. During the first half of the US game there were no more than 20,000 fans in the stadium. Around halftime, Soldier Field began to fill with green shirts. By the 65th minute, the stadium was full, mostly a sea of green and white, and the crowd had become decidedly pro-Canadian. Luckily we came away with a 2-1 win, with help from a call that went our way at the end of the match.
Long story short, this is why a game as big as tomorrow’s is played in the small confines of Columbus, Ohio. Among US fans, the sport just isn’t big enough yet. If the USSF put this match in a big stadium, near a large Latino population, American fans would be decidedly outnumbered and it would be no different than an away match.
Flash back to that night in June ’07: US fans stayed for El Tri’s match with tiny Guadeloupe (pop. 405,500) and cheered heavily for the French speaking island nation, who held Mexico, ranked 20th in the world at the time, until the 70th minute, when Pavel Pardo scored, setting up the US-Mexico final (2-1 to the US!) two days later. I wasn’t able to attend the final because of duties with the Bucks that weekend, but I’m not bitter, we beat Indiana 7-1 after all…
I believe I mentioned in my last post on this topic that I get extremely nervous for this game every year, even if it’s a friendly. My nerves are already here, and I’ll likely be a wreck as I drive down tomorrow morning. Keep me in your thoughts. Remember gametime is 7PM tomorrow, live on ESPN2 and UNIVISION.
Someone else in the office will be blogging tomorrow, so I’ll leave you with a prediction (2-0 US, of course) and a loud and boisterous “SHUT UP SVEN!”
Enjoy:
About this time tomorrow, I’ll be heading down to Columbus with the Motor City Supporters Group to represent Detroit among Sam’s Army and the American Outlaws as we make sure the US gets off to the best possible start in final round qualifying. Although I’ve been to a number of US matches since 1994 this is my first ever match against Mexico – I surprisingly hadn’t realize the fact until yesterday.
With that said I do have experience with a Mexico match. Attending the 2007 Gold Cup semi-finals at Soldier Field in Chicago, me and a friend went to see the US play Canada, but as it was a doubleheader, stayed for the Mexico-Guadeloupe match that followed. During the first half of the US game there were no more than 20,000 fans in the stadium. Around halftime, Soldier Field began to fill with green shirts. By the 65th minute, the stadium was full, mostly a sea of green and white, and the crowd had become decidedly pro-Canadian. Luckily we came away with a 2-1 win, with help from a call that went our way at the end of the match.
Long story short, this is why a game as big as tomorrow’s is played in the small confines of Columbus, Ohio. Among US fans, the sport just isn’t big enough yet. If the USSF put this match in a big stadium, near a large Latino population, American fans would be decidedly outnumbered and it would be no different than an away match.
Flash back to that night in June ’07: US fans stayed for El Tri’s match with tiny Guadeloupe (pop. 405,500) and cheered heavily for the French speaking island nation, who held Mexico, ranked 20th in the world at the time, until the 70th minute, when Pavel Pardo scored, setting up the US-Mexico final (2-1 to the US!) two days later. I wasn’t able to attend the final because of duties with the Bucks that weekend, but I’m not bitter, we beat Indiana 7-1 after all…
I believe I mentioned in my last post on this topic that I get extremely nervous for this game every year, even if it’s a friendly. My nerves are already here, and I’ll likely be a wreck as I drive down tomorrow morning. Keep me in your thoughts. Remember gametime is 7PM tomorrow, live on ESPN2 and UNIVISION.Someone else in the office will be blogging tomorrow, so I’ll leave you with a prediction (2-0 US, of course) and a loud and boisterous “SHUT UP SVEN!”
Enjoy:
1 comment:
Congrats! Your prediction was finally accurate! :)
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