USMNT hit the grind in nation’s capital ahead of crucial friendlies at RFK, Foxborough
WASHINGTON – They’re here for four days of hard work, a hazy late-summer heat wave just pushed temperatures back north of the 90-degree mark and the rusty downtown stadium is so antiquated that even its home team has run out of nice things to say about it.
At least the congressional politicians are out of town, though.
The U.S. Men’s National Team have set up camp in the leafy Northwest quadrant of the nation’s capital this week to grind through four days of coach Jurgen Klinsmann‘s typically-intense workouts ahead of Friday night’s international friendly vs. Peru at RFK Stadium (7 p.m. ET, broadcast live on FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports GO, UniMás, Univision Deportes Network). After that clash, they’ll swing north to the Boston area for a quick bit of recovery before facing off with mighty Brazil at Gillette Stadium in suburban Foxborough, Massachusetts on Tuesday night (ESPN2, WatchESPN, UniMás, Univision Deportes Network).
+READ: USMNT to face Peru on Sept. 4 at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.
The USMNT’s latest of many visits to D.C. is not quite at the level of a World Cup qualifier or a Gold Cup match, but it’s certainly an edgier situation than your average friendly. Klinsmann and his men were lackluster for large chunks of the Gold Cup this summer, and their trophy defense was ended extra-early by a humbling semifinal loss to Jamaica.
As a result, the door was left wide open for Mexico to win back the top spot in CONCACAF, and they did exactly that, setting up a high-stakes border clash in the newly-created “CONCACAF Cup” at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California on Oct. 10. This single-game playoff will determine which Gold Cup winner represents the North American region in the Confederations Cup tournament every four years, in this case meaning that next month’s champion will go to Russia 2017.
So the USMNT have two games to right the ship and get right for El Tri, who figure to be tough, tenacious opponents as usual – especially in Southern California, where their fans generally outnumber the Yanks’.
“I definitely think these friendlies are different than friendlies in January, just because of where they fall on the calendar and what’s ahead of us,” center back Matt Besler told a small group of reporters at Monday’s training session at American University. (All of this week’s USMNT training sessions are closed to the public.)
“We have a very, very big match coming up in about a month, and so these two friendlies we have to take very seriously, to try and get ready for the Mexico game.”
+READ: USMNT to face Mexico in playoff for 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup berth
D.C. has generally been a happy home for the U.S. national teams. Friday’s affair at RFK will be the 23rd time the old concrete bowl has welcomed the USMNT, the most of any venue in the world. The team is 14-3-5 in those games, with an average attendance of 30,183 fans.
Their last visit was a memorable one, the “Centennial Celebration” game which marked the U.S. Soccer Federation’s 100th anniversary with a 4-3 defeat of Germany (Klinsmann’s old country, of course) in front of a packed house of 47,359 spectators.
With the metropolitan area’s large Peruvian-American community likely to turn out in strength, this week’s game could yet reach that level of size and spectacle – but first, the USMNT must slog through several sessions under their famously fitness-obsessed coach’s regimen.
And this time, the return of several recently-absent veterans like Tim Howard and Jermaine Jones means that playing time, even in key roles, will be fought over fiercely.
While their USWNT counterparts strutted in the spotlight earned by a Women’s World Cup-winning campaign in Canada, the USMNT got knocked for a loop this summer.
Now they’re hungry to spark a revival.
“Every game after [last summer’s] World Cup, people were looking at us different than before,” noted Jones on Monday. “When you play Germany, you play Holland [the European giants the USMNT knocked off in late-spring away friendlies], of course people are looking forward to Gold Cup.
“And when you don’t win it, people start to [question] – I think it’s their right to, they write something and talk about something, and talk about players. But now it’s a time for everybody who got called in to step up and show in these two games that he owns a spot, maybe, against Mexico.”
