Photo by ISIPhotos.com
By DAN KARELL
As it turns out, the U.S. Men’s National Team won’t be the only national side facing their Mexican counterparts this September.
U.S. Soccer announced on Tuesday that the United States Women’s National Team will play Mexico in a friendly match on September 3 in Washington D.C., in the first match following the conclusion of the NWSL season. It will be the first meeting between the two countries since January, 2012 during the Olympic qualifying tournament in Vancouver, Canada.
The match, taking place at RFK Stadium, will also be shown on the new sports network, Fox Sports 1, which debuts on August 17. It will be the first international soccer match shown on the network.
The friendly marks the first match for the USWNT since June 20, when Abby Wambach broke Mia Hamm’s all-time scoring record, finishing four times in a 5-0 victory against South Korea to take Wambach’s career international total to 160 goals.
On August 31, the NWSL closes out it’s inaugural season with the championship match. From the most recent USWNT roster of 23 players, 15 of them play their club soccer in the NWSL.
Tickets for the match are available for purchase beginning on July 26 at 10am.
What do you think of this news? Do you feel this is a good test for the USWNT?
Share your thoughts below.
Can we get more than 4 blogs per page please? Thanks.
There’s no such thing as a Friendly between US and Mexico. Men, women, any level.
word
“Kind of tired of watching them face the Canucks and Mexico…”
This. There are other teams out there.
Yeah, but those matches are much more expensive to put on. Mexico and Canada are just more convenient than Norway or China. Most of the players are already in the US, after all.
The US last played Mexico in January 2012. Since then, they have played 40 matches that didn’t include Mexico.
Plus, this isn’t on a FIFA calendar date, so there are only so many quality teams who would be available. And it’s a good idea to give Mexico a game because they are paying for their players to be in the NWSL, even if they aren’t getting a ton of playing time.
Go ahead and pick on playing Canada too much. Since that last Mexico game, we’ve played them 4 times, but 2 of those were in tournaments and couldn’t be helped.
What do you mean they are paying for their players to play in the NWSL?
The US, Mexican and Canadian Federations pay the salaries (or at least part of them) of their national team players that play in the NWSL.
That’s ok. It’s possible that some of the ladies that you’re referring to speak Spanish better than some of our players on the USMNT raised in Germany speak English. I’ve chatted with a few of those guys last summer.
I will probably buy some tickets for the match just because it’s a local game for me and my kid hasn’t had the chance to attend a USWNT match before.
It would be nice if they could have scheduled England or France. Kind of tired of watching them face the Canucks and Mexico but I’ll pony up the ca$h and make it a nice family event if my daughter’s club coach doesn’t have them scheduled to train that day (geez-that guy is really strict seeing as how they are only U-9’s!)
Its always a joke playing mexico at the womens level
90% of the womens mexican team is born in the US
And half of those can’t speak Spanish.
Imagine what they say about our men’s team….
Last time I checked there wasn’t a Mexican born player on the US team.
Wow. That says a lot about opportunities for female athletes in Mexico. Perhaps their fans shouldn’t be so critical of America.