In order to qualify for the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero, the U.S. Under-23 Men’s National Team will have to make its way through Frisco, Texas.
On Tuesday, U.S. Soccer announced that Toyota Stadium in Frisco will be the site of the Americans’ return leg of the two-game Olympic Qualifying series against Colombia. The game is scheduled to kick off at 9:30 p.m. (ESPN2) on March 29, four days after the U.S. travels to Barranquilla, Colombia, to compete in the first leg of the series.
The U.S. U-23s finished in third place during last year’s CONCACAF Men’s Olympic qualifying tournament, with Honduras and Mexico clinching the two automatic qualifying spots in the region.
The Americans missed out on the chance to compete in the 2012 Olympics in the United Kingdom after failing to finish within the top three during the qualification process.
Think Toyota Stadium is a good choice for the return leg? Will the U.S. have an advantage in Frisco?
Share your thoughts below.
Here is my complaint, that UBG will probably justifiably smack down:
Why do these important fixtures only get 4 days of turnaround? That really doesn’t seem fair.
A week of recovery and planning seems like the least we could do scheduling wise.
Though I understand the constraints of the international window and other considerations get in the way, we could potentially get ‘n’ number of days training in Colombia, while they’ll only get 3 days maximum to acclimate to the US.
Oh, for pete’s sake. Could we get a stadium literally geographically closer to Colombia? Maybe Miami? If this was a crucial home-away versus Canada, would we schedule the game in Buffalo? Cripes.
I really hope you are being sarcastic on this one, hard to tell with some of the other comments here, because if not I can’t believe it!! Do you not see how ridiculous your complaint is?? Are you seriously complaining that Dallas is too geographically close to Colombia??
Poster above said there are tons of Colombians in the north Dallas area. This is a bad move for us soccer if that’s the case. The last thing we need is to give Colombia home field advantage for both legs!
I’ll be there with my friend from Cali,Colombia (NEW U.S. citizen)! There are tons of Colombians and Brazillians in the N. Dallas area. Maybe it will be a sellout with a 60/40 crowd for the USA
Why the hell is this game taking place on the same day as the World Cup qualifier in Columbus?!?! Fans who want to attend the WCQ game will have to miss most, if not all of the U-23 game.
A few thousand fans at Crew stadium are the least of their concerns. Those are the dates that make the most sense. The Fifa period is from March 21st to the 29th. The 25th is a Friday, so that maximizes attendance, and gives the team about 3 or 4 full days (depending on travel time from club team to Colombia) to prepare for the first match. Then they get another 3 full days of prep for the next game on Tuesday the 29th.
Hopefully the fans in Frisco/Dallas fill the stadium.
don’t really get why they would do it in Dallas. like the others have said, Columbus, or Kansas City make more sense to me. oh well…hopefully we can get a great turnout…
Same as above; Columbus is already taken that night for USA vs Guatemala. Kansas City definitely has a great fan base. Maybe they didn’t want the game?? We will never know.
yup, which is why USSF was thinking of doing a double header. something that would have been pretty awesome, IMO.
Look, i love the Dallas area (born thurrrr), but couldn’t we have picked a colder environment for the Colombians to play in? In late March, Columbus, OH can get down to the 30’s at nights. And considering our most important players will be used to the cold (Miazga, CCV, Keisewetter, Morris, Zelalem, etc), I think we should pull a “dos a cero” and make the South Americans play in the cold.
Columbus is already taken that night for USA vs Guatemala.
Put it in seattle or portland, where we would even get a home field advantage from the supporters, and be in colder conditions. Even new york, chicago, kansas city, philly would be decent options. With colombia coming from warmer conditions and the population of latinos in dallas, could be dealing with a home field advantage for our oponents, again.
After the shambolics of the qualifying tourney where 15 people showed-up in SLC, putting this game in Portland or Seattle is exactly what they should’ve done. You are 100% correct, that is where the “lads” would get a great home field advantage crowd. If the only reason they can’t put these games in Seattle or Portland is because of turf and stadium size, respectively, then US soccer needs to give MLS a kick in the butt and make a new NW stadium happen because the National teams need to be playing there!
If they want people to show up maybe you shouldn’t have super expensive tickets to a U-23 game. That’s on US soccer.
I’m not so sure stadiums size really even matters, providence park is about the size as toyota stadium and centurylink even when just the lower bowl is full would be a great atmosphere. The turf on the other hand is terrible in seattle, but portlands is alright.
The biggest Colombian population in the USA is in N.Y. so scratch that one. Portland or Seattle would have been better.
It’s affordable too. Pretty sweet for us here in Dallas. I’ll be there!
You might be the only one there. Frisco has a record of having more seats than actual people at their games. This is a horrible decision overall. 8 hours north of Dallas would’ve been better in Kansas, not to mention the colder weather being an advantage.
Thanks for the sweet insider info.
I’ve always felt that the “cold-weather advantage” thing is way over-blown. Cold weather affects everyone, Americans aren’t immune to it. Many parts of the United States are just as warm as Colombia. Not all of our players play in cold weather all the time, so some of them will be affected differently than others. Also, many of Colombia’s players play in Europe and are used to the cold.
This whole argument has always been kind of ridiculous. It makes more sense if you are talking about a club team, that plays there everyday and gets to adjust, but not for a national team where players come from all over. We played Costa Rica in a blizzard!! Even though we won that game, its not like we completely outplayed them. It was an even match. I kept waiting for our SUPER-AMERICAN-ESKIMO-ADAPTIVE-POWERS to kick in or something like that but they never did.
Really? I’ll let the USMNT players know that it was all in their heads when they played Honduras in Honduras. There is only one place in the US that can be said resembles Colombia weather…Florida, in fact, the second biggest Colombian population is in Miami.
Not sure if Colombian’s U23 team is mainly composed of domestic teams but I would imagine like us, they would have the same problem getting their Euro players released when their clubs don’t have to.