The United States prepares to face Mexico in Azteca Stadium on Tuesday night, and everyone is ready. John Godfrey has quotes and photos, Omar Gonzalez has video, and FIFA has protests.
BY
Jesse Yomtov
Posted
March 26, 2013
8:25 AM
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Our John Godfrey poses the question: “Has Jurgen Klinsmann managed to turn the whole sordid Sporting News affair into a motivational tool?” The U.S. coach stands by his methods (“I have to challenge them and maybe some players are not always happy with that”), but the team has apparently come together in the last week. "Guys have taken more responsibility," Herculez Gomez said Monday. "You can notice the mental shift."
Michael Orozco Fiscal was added to the roster late last night. We all remember what he did last time out in Mexico City.
Photos from Mexico City! Even completely empty, the Azteca is stunning. Omar Gonzalez agrees:
Daunting quadrennial statistics! Mexico is 68-1-6 in home World Cup qualifying, unbeaten in its last 25. The U.S. is 0-13-1 in qualifiers in Mexico.
It’s nearly four years old, but Bill Simmons’ first-person account of the 2-1 loss at the Azteca in 2009 is still awesome. It’s amusing to see how much, yet how little has changed since the last World Cup cycle. Doesn’t “world-class player” Oguchi Onyewu seem like ages ago? But then you also remember thinking this past Friday, as Simmons wrote in 2009: "U.S. fans found themselves clinging to the same hope: ‘Maybe Jozy will make a play. Maybe.'"
FIFA got Costa Rica’s protest about Friday’s match. The fine organization will do something “in due course.” Among other convoluted things that had to be done for the protest to have merit, FIFA regulations say Costa Rica’s captain had to immediately lodge a protest with the referee, in the presence of the other team’s captain. Clint Dempsey says that didn’t happen.
Speaking of Snow Fest '13, Bob Ley has an excellent first-hand account of broadcasting the game: "When I turned around in the press room about two hours before air and saw Kasey Keller standing there like Elmer Fudd about to go hunting (‘Be vewwy vewwy quiet. I am hunting wabbits’) I thought it was a joke. But no, our all-star production coordinator, Gabriella Robuccio, had procured those now infamous hats for Kasey and Alexi Lalas." Also, he seems to have overnighted his scarf. That is absurd and totally badass.
