U.S. soccer team is fixated on beating Mexico on Saturday

Shortly after the U.S. national soccer team convened at its Orange County hotel to begin preparing for Saturday’s CONCACAF Cup game at a sold-out Rose Bowl, Coach Juergen Klinsmann called a meeting.

But unlike some previous Klinsmann addresses, which have taken on the feel of a tent revival, the message was simple this time.

Beat Mexico.

“You don’t have to say much,” U.S. midfielder Alejandro Bedoya said. “This game is of huge importance to both teams. But especially to us.”

And especially to Klinsmann.

His team comes into the game having won only one of its last four games, with two of those results coming in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, where the U.S. finished outside the top three for the first time since 2000. It followed that with a one-sided loss to Brazil.

So with World Cup qualifying beginning next month, some critics say Klinsmann should lose his job if the U.S. loses Saturday’s game to its fiercest rival.

“If a player plays poorly and a player has a bad string of results, they get dropped from the team,” former Galaxy captain Landon Donovan, who was dropped from Klinsmann’s team before the last World Cup, told ESPN FC.

“Well, the same holds true for the coach. We had a very poor summer with bad results in the Gold Cup. The last game against Brazil was probably the worst game I’ve seen them play under Juergen. The reality is that now, anywhere else in the world, if this coach had those results and they lose this game against Mexico, they’d be fired.”

That’s not likely to happen. Klinsmann is signed through the 2018 World Cup, so his job may be one of the few things that won’t be on the line Saturday.

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The most important prize at stake is CONCACAF’s berth in the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, an important eight-team dress rehearsal for the World Cup. Close behind, however, is national pride. Mexico not only dethroned the U.S. as Gold Cup champion last summer, but it hasn’t lost to the U.S. in the Rose Bowl since 1994.

And the last time the teams played there, in 2011, a loss did cost a U.S. coach his job, with Bob Bradley’s postgame sacking opening the door for Klinsmann.

“As a player, these are the games you want to play in,” said U.S. captain Michael Bradley, the former coach’s son. “Mexico are our biggest rivals. Rose Bowl, packed to the brim.

“When you talk about this game, form goes out the window. Whatever’s happened in the last few months, whatever’s been achieved in the last few months, whatever’s written, whatever’s said, when that whistle blows it doesn’t count for anything.”

The roster Klinsmann’s called up underscores the game’s importance. Seven of the 23 players have made at least 50 appearances with the national team and four have played more than 100 games. Sixteen were on last year’s World Cup team and more than half the players are at least 29 years old.

“You need a roster of 23 guys where you really feel, as a coach, that in this one specific opportunity, they are the right ones to get the job done,” Klinsmann said. “That’s why this roster is obviously full of experience. There are a lot of players that experienced different challenges over their careers and managed them.”

For some, however, the game may prove to be the last hurrah. If Klinsmann starts the same 10 field players Saturday that he started in last year’s World Cup opener, only Bradley, Fabian Johnson and Jozy Altidore will be younger than 30 when the Confederations Cup kicks off.

For now, Klinsmann isn’t thinking past Saturday.

“It’s an opportunity that will not come back to you anymore in your career,” he said of the message he’s giving his players. “Now it’s about winning a trophy. It’s about in 90 or possibly 120 minutes in front of a sold-out Rose Bowl crowd of 90,000. It’s about performing.

“It will stay with you for the rest of your life. They can be excited about it and always look back and say ‘I was there that special day.’ This is the ticket to the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia. It’s a unique opportunity.”

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