TEMPE, Arizona — For any international soccer squad (or really a team in any sport at all), hitting the road for games in inhospitable environments is a fact of life.
Home-field advantage is real. The flip side of that fact is that it also holds true for opponents. Being the away team is almost always harder. It sure has been for the U.S. men’s national team against Mexico, its fiercest rival. While the USA has gotten the better of El Tri more often than not over the last quarter-century — including a 2-0 win that sent the Americans to the quarterfinals of the 2002 FIFA World Cup, it still has never won a competitive match south of the border since the neighbors first met in one there almost 80 years ago.
Cavan Sullivan will get his first real experience in the USA-Mexico rivalry. (Photo by Bill Barrett/ISI Photos/ISI Photos via Getty Images)
Saturday’s exhibition between the U.S. and Mexico just outside of Phoenix is technically a home game for the Stars and Stripes. As a practical matter, it isn’t. The overwhelming majority of the 60,000-plus fans expected at State Farm Stadium in nearby Glendale are sure to be rooting for the visiting team.
“It’s going to be an adverse crowd, tough conditions to play in,” veteran American defender Antonee Robinson said on Thursday. “But that’s something we embrace.”
They should.
It’s been almost two years since Mauricio Pochettino’s side last played outside the United States. Because the USA qualified automatically as co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup, it didn’t have to earn its way there by collecting points in hostile regional outposts such as Port-of-Spain or San Pedro Sula or Mexico City.
That won’t be the case ahead of the 2030 World Cup. Concacaf’s marathon two-year-long qualifying tournament begins late next year. Saturday’s contest will help prepare the U.S. for what’s coming.
“It’s a good opportunity for us to live that experience, of course,” Pochettino said during his pre-game press conference, adding that if the composition of the crowd resembles the 2025 Gold Cup final that the U.S. narrowly lost to Mexico in front of an ocean of green jerseys in Houston, it will be like starting the game “down 1-nil.”
Tyler Adams has been named the new USMNT captain. (Photo by Omar Vega/Getty Images)
Still, the intensity of the game against El Tri figures to be unlike anything any of the newcomers have seen before.
“Dislike, hate. I mean, it’s a rivalry,” said Tyler Adams, who Pochettino announced will inherit the captain’s armband from the now-retired Tim Ream.
“Whenever we play Mexico — whether it’s a qualifier, a friendly, Gold Cup, Nations League — it’s always seen as a must-win game,” Robinson said. “It feels like a cup final, and we get a lot of boys who’ve never experienced that at this level who’ll get to see it for the first time.”
Given what we’ve seen from the new generation so far, they’ll likley be up for the challenge.
“There’s a lot of games where we’ve played and it’s been mostly Mexico fans. Some teams could fold under that pressure,” Robibnsion continued. “But I think we like the kind of adversity that comes with that. We love when we score and we’re getting beers thrown at us and things like that.
“It’s a great feeling.”
