USA Will get Mexico In The Gold Cup Closing Everybody Needed: 'We Owe Them'

Doug McIntyre

Soccer Journalist

ST. LOUIS — U.S. males’s nationwide staff defender Chris Richards didn’t hesitate when requested if he needed to face Mexico within the Concacaf Gold Cup last.

It was solely an hour after the U.S. had outlasted Guatemala 2-1 in Wednesday’s semifinal. However Richards was upfront about eager to face the People’ historic nemesis in Sunday’s grand finale in Houston (protection begins at 6 p.m. ET on FOX).

Mexico was nonetheless locked in a scoreless battle with Honduras midway throughout the nation at that time. It will’ve been straightforward for Richards to hedge.

He didn’t.

“Yeah,” Richards mentioned. “Yeah, I do.”

“We owe them a little bit one thing from the October camp,” Richards added, alluding to Mexico’s 2-0 win in Guadalajara final fall that snapped a seven-game winless run in opposition to the People. “We’ll do it by successful a trophy.”

He and his USMNT teammates obtained their want. Mexico went on to defeat Honduras 1-0 in Santa Clara, California, and advance to Sunday’s championship. It guarantees to be a sold-out crowd of greater than 70,000 largely green-clad followers at NRG Stadium, residence of the NFL’s Houston Texans.

“Rising up seeing the USA-Mexico video games, to have the ability to play in a single could be unreal,” mentioned U.S. ahead Diego Luna, a Mexican-American who scored each targets in opposition to Guatemala.

The environment on Sunday can be off the charts. However Wednesday’s match was the best gown rehearsal for coach Mauricio Pochettino’s squad, who had been the house staff solely in title at Energizer Park. A lot of the 22,000 there have been rooting for the Guatemalans, who hadn’t made it to the Gold Cup semifinal spherical in virtually three a long time. The noise contained in the stadium was deafening for many of the contest. It made for an unforgettable spectacle, with the emotion from the stands spurring on either side.

“It is so intense,” mentioned St. Louis native Tim Ream, who captained his nation for the twentieth event on Wednesday, tying him with program legend Clint Dempsey for eleventh on the all-time listing. “It provides extra to the sport, provides extra strain.”

Tim Ream understands the strain of enjoying in intense Gold Cup video games. (Photograph by Invoice Barrett/ISI Pictures/USSF/Getty Photographs)

And for probably the most half, the People handled it nicely. Each of Luna’s targets got here inside the primary quarter-hour of the competition, which helped take the air out of the constructing — at the very least for some time. However Los Chapines quickly obtained their supporters again within the sport and doubtless had the higher of the play the remainder of the best way.

“That they had nothing to lose,” mentioned Ream. “They’re down 2-0 after quarter-hour and they’ll go all-out, as a result of they should discover a means again into the sport.”

By the point it was over, the guests had stored 51 % of possession and out-shot the U.S. 20-12, lastly beating keeper Matt Freese on Olger Escobar’s strike that made the ultimate 10 minutes excruciating for the USMNT backers in the home.

Nonetheless, Pochettino’s staff discovered a approach to survive. These classes might show invaluable this weekend and, with the 2026 World Cup on residence soil lower than a 12 months away, past.

“This sport tonight could be just like the little brother to the U.S.-Mexico sport,” Richards mentioned. “In the event that they had been a bit nervous for that one, the following line goes to be loads greater…it was actually necessary for a number of the youthful guys to expertise that.”

As grizzled Concacaf veterans, Ream and Richards weren’t shocked that the U.S. was mainly the away staff at residence. It’s been the case for U.S. groups going again a long time once they come up in opposition to rival nations the place soccer is considered extra faith than sport. It was a brand new expertise for the various kids on this roster, which is lacking a few dozen regulars this summer season, together with AC Milan star and USMNT headliner Christian Pulisic.

“Rising up seeing the USA-Mexico video games, to have the ability to play in a single could be unreal”

— U.S. males’s staff star Diego Luna

But it surely certainly shocked a number of the kids. It was an eye-opener for Pochettino, too.

“Unbelievable, the followers of Guatemala,” the coach mentioned. “It was an environment that we didn’t count on.”

“That’s Concacaf,” Ream mentioned. “You are enjoying within the coronary heart of the guts of America and you’ve got 95 % Guatemalan followers.

“It’s a must to embrace it,” he continued. “It’s a must to get pleasure from it.”

Luna definitely did.

“I beloved it,” he mentioned. “That is what each sport must be like.”

Is USMNT’s Diego Luna making a case to Mauricio Pochettino for World Cup roster? | FOX Soccer

The subsequent one can be a number of orders of magnitude greater. However this younger U.S. staff has proven loads of resilience in its final two video games, together with final Sunday’s penalty shootout win over Costa Rica within the quarterfinals. And this squad has earned the appropriate to play on the largest stage there’s on this nook of Planet Fútbol.

Few would’ve predicted a U.S.-Mexico decider firstly of the event, which the People entered on the again of a four-match shedding streak — their longest run of futility since 2007. Now they’re only one extra victory away from their eighth Gold Cup title.

“We’re onto a last, a last that I would say a month in the past, everybody mainly counted us out of,” Ream mentioned. “Disgrace on them.”

The U.S. males’s staff are onto the Gold Cup last on Sunday. (Photograph by Invoice Barrett/ISI Pictures/USSF/Getty Photographs)

Whether or not or not they prevail, the U.S. can be prepared.

“It is new for lots of fellows to play in environments like this – that is one thing we will construct off,” Luna mentioned.

“This can be a nice instance for what’s to come back on Sunday.”

Doug McIntyre is a soccer reporter for FOX Sports activities who has lined United States males’s and ladies’s nationwide groups at FIFA World Cups on 5 continents. Observe him @ByDougMcIntyre.