Cold, Wet Foxboro Is a Site for Sore U.S. Eyes
An icy wind cut through the empty stands at Foxboro Stadium on Saturday afternoon, lifting the tarpaulins that mirrored the gray and black clouds overhead.
Stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to keep warm, a group of Mexican journalists outside the U.S. locker room smiled grimly and shook their heads.
Yes, they admitted, this was payback time.
The road to World Cup ’98 in France goes through some hot and humid places for the U.S. national soccer team--Kingston, Jamaica; San Salvador, El Salvador; San Jose, Costa Rica; Mexico City--and in each of those cities the American team is forced to play when temperatures are at their highest.
Not today, not when the United States (1-1-1 in qualifying) plays Mexico (2-0-1) in New England, where spring is still a distant rumor no matter what the calendar says.
Now, it is time to even the score.
The U.S. team has a new motto for this game: the colder, the wetter, the more unpleasant, the better.
“If we’re thinking it’s cold, the Mexicans are really going to be thinking it’s cold,” goalkeeper Kasey Keller said Saturday.
“They do the same thing to us. We end up going to Costa Rica and playing at 11 a.m. or going to Mexico City and playing at noon. Maybe it’s time to give them a taste of their own medicine.
“I’m a Seattle boy and I’ve been playing in England for five years, so the field conditions are perfect for me.”
It was raining in Foxboro on Saturday, with temperatures barely climbing into the 40s. Today, it is supposed to be a little drier and a little warmer--but not much, U.S. captain John Harkes hopes.
“Obviously, it won’t be a normal situation for them [Mexico],” he said. “They love playing in the heat.
“Whenever we come up against Mexico, it’s always a matter of throwing each other off our games. Whether it’s mind games that Bora [Milutinovic, Mexico’s coach and the former U.S. coach] is playing with us, or setting alarms off in our hotels or whatever.
“The conditions here are going to suit us because we’re able to play in the cold. There are a lot of us who have played in Europe in the cold and rain and everything else. Maybe they [Mexico] are going to sit back and be a bit more defensive in this weather.
“They’re going to be having to wear hats and gloves and whatever.”
Not quite as pleased with the Foxboro field Saturday was Steve Sampson, the U.S. coach.
“I think it’s bad for the game to have poor field conditions,” he said. “Aesthetically, I think we’ll play a much more attractive game if the weather holds off and it warms up a little bit tomorrow so they can cut the grass.
“If there’s standing water on the field, it’s going to get ugly. They’ve done a very good job of covering it and if the wind keeps up, there’s very little chance of there being standing water. But if it’s too soft to mow, then it makes it very thick. In my opinion, it’s unplayable now, from the length-of-grass standpoint.”
Sampson is quite happy, though, that rain and near-freezing temperatures have prevailed in the days leading up to the game.
“Sometimes, Mother Nature is on our side,” he said.
“I don’t think there’s really going to be that much of an advantage for either team in terms of the climate, though. What both teams are hoping for--especially us, because we want to play an attractive brand of soccer, that’s important to us--is that the conditions of the field be such that we can do that.
“We came here because of the fans, not because of the climate. Really. This has been a very good stadium for us, we’ve had a lot of success here. It’s really the quality of the fan support that determined where we brought this game.”
The match was sold out by the middle of last week. The crowd of 57,877 will be a record for a U.S. World Cup qualifying game, surpassing the 40,572 that saw the U.S. play Costa Rica at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto in December.
And, as Samson, says, the U.S. has enjoyed good luck here in recent years. A quick sampling:
* June 1, 1991--U.S. 1, Ireland 1;
* June 9, 1993--U.S. 2, England 0;
* June 11, 1995--U.S. 3, Nigeria 2;
* June 9, 1996--U.S. 2, Ireland 1.
Perhaps today that streak will continue.
But as Saturday day turned into Saturday night and temperatures again began to fall, one thing was obvious:
This is not June.
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U.S.-Mexico at a Glance
WHAT: World Cup ’98 qualifying match.
WHO: United States vs. Mexico.
WHERE: Foxboro (Mass.) Stadium.
WHEN: 11:30 a.m. PDT
TV: Channel 7, 1:30 p.m. (delayed).
RECORDS: United States 1-1-1 (four points); Mexico 2-0-1 (seven points).
AT STAKE: First place in the six-nation qualifying group that also includes Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador and Jamaica. Each team plays 10 games, the top three finishers go to France.
