by GIANFRANCO PANIZO
MIAMI-With only two days left before the United States national team takes on Mexico in a crucial World Cup qualifier in Estadio Azteca, the team began their preparations in a hot and humid morning in South Florida.
While much of the discussion was about the game itself, head coach Bob Bradley did touch touch on the team's preparations for the match, and why the team is taking the approach they are.
"With the fact that it's a single fixture date, you only get guys a couple days before," said Bradley. "You can't acclimate to altitude in a couple days, so with the people that we work with, the experts with the USOC (United States Olympic Committee) and others, the plan was drawn up to go in late."
Besides the altitude, Bradley also recognized the other difficulties of playing in Azteca, such as the crowd noise and air quality. But one aspect that the United States does have control over is the way they start the game, a task that has proven to be difficult for the Americans in road qualifiers.
"The early goals have been a problem lately for us in CONCACAF so we need to eliminate that for sure," said defender and captain Carlos Bocanegra.
"We've learned from the Confederations Cup and our standard and starting point and we need to not just have that be a one off thing for that tournament down there. We need to to take that and apply that to every game in CONCACAF and also the World Cup."
To get to the World Cup, however, the U.S. has to finish the second half of qualifying on a strong foot. A tie or unprecedented win in Mexico City on Wednesday would go a long ways to helping the U.S. achieve that goal.
"This is a great challenge for us," said goalkeeper Tim Howard, who is undefeated against Mexico. "It's not going to be easy for us so we have to enjoy (playing at the highest level)."
Here are some other notes from today's hot and humid training session:
- Jozy Altidore, Michael Bradley, Benny Feilhaber, Brian Ching, Ricardo Clark and Stuart Holden were not at the practice session, but will arrive to Miami today.
- Marcelo Balboa attended the U.S.'s practice, and will be on the mun2 commentating cast for Wednesday's match.
Do you think the U.S. national team is taken the correct measures in preparing for the qualifier? Concerned about the opening minutes of the match? Elated that Balboa will be spreading his wisdom on mun2?
Share your thoughts below.
