SAN ANTONIO—Yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s just a friendly. 

The glorified exhibitions that make up much of the soccer calendar don’t count in any standings, don’t produce any trophies, and don’t help teams qualify for any international tournaments. But there are friendlies and then there are rivalry friendlies, and for the United States and Mexico, last night’s game was a chance to beat your primary opponent—and that’s not something the American players took lightly.

So yeah, the U.S. national team was more than a tad pumped up after being Mexico 2-0 last night at the Alamodome, a win that made the Yanks 3-0-3 against their neighbors to the south since Jurgen Klinsmann took over as head coach in August of 2011. 

“It’s exciting. These games are special, no two ways about it,” said U.S. captain Michael Bradley. “There’s a buzz and sense of excitement—it’s just different. There’s no other way to put it other than when you’re in the bus before the game driving to the stadium (and see the fans and) you see green, you see red, white, and blue, and you know it’s gonna be a special night.”

Since 2000, the U.S. is 13-5-5, having faced El Tri in tournaments, World Cup qualifiers, and friendlies. 

“You don’t forget these quickly,” said Bradley, who set up both U.S. goals with pinpoint passes. “It doesn’t really matter which players we have, which players they have. Friendly, qualifier, Gold Cup—these carry some extra weight. We spoke in the locker room tonight about enjoying this because you never know when you get another chance.

"We’ll all enjoy this one.”

That message seemed to resonate.

“This is such a fun rivalry to play in,” Mix Diskerud said. “You know it’s going to be intense and you always want to beat your rival.” 

Forward Jordan Morris, who had the game-winning strike, said scoring his first national team goal was more special because of the opponent.

“Growing up, you know what a big deal U.S.-Mexico is. This is a huge game for us and you could see it in how pumped up everyone was. To score in this game is a dream come true.” 

And while this game has no consequence of record, it is a confidence builder.

“It plants a seed in their head,” said Juan Agudelo, who scored the second goal. “I think it’s huge to get a win against Mexico, a team that I’m sure we’ll see in the Gold Cup.” 

The Gold Cup, CONCACAF’s biennial championship, starts in July and the two sides have met in three of the past four finals. If the U.S. wins it will automatically qualify for the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, a key tune-up event for the 2018 World Cup. 

The Americans won the Gold Cup two years ago so if it doesn’t win this year’s version it will still have a playoff this fall against the new champion to determine who goes to Russia. This is a sequence of events the Yanks are hoping to avoid.

“Everybody was on the same page in terms of, ‘We want to get a result and we want to do well’ because we’re a few months away from a huge Gold Cup that hopefully takes us to the Confederations Cup in Russia,” Klinsmann said.

Brooke Tunstall is an American Soccer Now contributing editor and ASN 100 panelist. Follow him on Twitter.