U.S. Is Trying Mexico for Size
No matter what happens against Mexico at Invesco Field in Denver tonight, the coaches and players of the United States national soccer team won’t be able to reprise the excuse they used last Wednesday.
Then, after a 4-2 loss to Germany in Rostock, Germany, in a game in which the score could have been even more lopsided, the Germans’ size and power were said to have caused the Americans’ downfall.
“I thought the key to the game was their physical strength,” Coach Bruce Arena said.
Arena’s view was echoed by two of his most experienced players, goalkeeper Kasey Keller and midfielder Earnie Stewart.
“Obviously they are a very big and strong team,” Keller said. “And when you are a little bit smaller, you have to want it that much more, and we got pushed around a bit today.”
Exactly, said Stewart:
“They have so many big boys in there that sometimes, especially with corner kicks, they start to push and shove, and they get that physical advantage.”
That will not be the case tonight. Mexico is nowhere near as physically imposing as Germany, but it is just as dangerous. And there will be more than simply pride at stake.
Mexico’s Coach Javier Aguirre said this week that on April 15 he will name the 23-man roster he will take to the World Cup in Japan and South Korea in May. Mexico plays Croatia, Ecuador and Italy in the first round.
Aguirre will be without the Spanish-based trio of midfielder Gerardo Torrado and forwards Cuauhtemoc Blanco and Juan Francisco Palencia, as well as French-based defender Rafael Marquez.
Braulio Luna, who has scored three goals in his last two games for Necaxa, was called in Monday by Aguirre, who also has recalled goalkeeper Jorge Campos and midfielder German Villa for the match.
“I have to take advantage of the opportunity I have been given,” Luna said, a feeling shared by players from both teams.
One of Aguirre’s more interesting inclusions is Pachuca midfielder Gabriel Caballero. He was born in Argentina but has played in Mexico for seven years and in December became a Mexican citizen in the hope of making Mexico’s World Cup team.
For the U.S., this will be the last home game before Arena selects his own World Cup roster after a game April 17 against Ireland in Dublin.
Sixteen of the 18 players Arena has available tonight are from Major League Soccer, and for some it will be the last chance to make the U.S. team, which plays Portugal, South Korea and Poland in the World Cup’s first round.
Considering how easily Germany was able to brush aside the U.S. defense last week, tonight’s game would seem to be especially important for defenders Frankie Hejduk of Bayer Leverkusen, Greg Vanney of Bastia and Pablo Mastroeni of the Colorado Rapids. None of the three played against Germany.
Nor did goalkeeper Tony Meola, a veteran of 1990 and 1994 tournaments who is trying to reach his third World Cup.
“To be part of another World Cup would be a great honor,” Meola said Tuesday. “I know that Bruce [Arena] has his mind set on Brad [Friedel] and Kasey [Keller], but I know that he is also looking for someone who is ready to play if anything happens. That part of it I accept.
“To me, being part of the [World Cup] team is something special.... To make this team after skipping one [1998] with the injury and people writing me off would be a great accomplishment.”
