It's 10:00 AM I'm at work and finding a hard time concentrating. Today is the day many a US soccer fan has been waiting for all summer, the big US vs. Mexico grudge match for the ages live from Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. Naturally it's only live if you happen to have Telemundo or Mundo2 and can be somewhere during the latter part of the workday. Unfortunately many of us hard working Americans have to be somewhere at 3:00 AM Central time in the middle of the work week. I'll be in an important meeting discreetly checking the Blackberry for occasional updates. Like I noted in the past I wasn't ready for the Mexican FA to schedule the game at 3:00 PM on a weekday so unlike your typical Champions League final I didn't prep to have that time off.
How absolutely fired up are the Mexican fans? According to Soccer by Ives tickets are being sold for as much as $384 which is a heck of an amount for your typical sports consumer in Mexico. Why is it such a big deal? The World Cup qualifying hopes of an entire country are riding on this game. In a region such as Concacaf it's absolutely embarrasing for a national of football talent such as Mexico not to qualify. This match could be the defining moment in the complete emergence of the United States as the dominant footballing nation in the region. Mexico currently sits in fourth place in the qualifying group. The top three automatically qualify with the fourth place club relegated to a difficult playoff against the fifth place club from South America. The fifth place CONMEBOL team is likely Ecuador or Uruguay but could possibly be a death matchup versus Argentina. The US team would like nothing else than to send Mexico into such a matchup. A loss to the US and Mexico is facing an early September fixture at Saprissa Stadium in Costa Rica, perhaps more of a home field advantage than Azteca Stadium. A couple of losses could send them reeling and could send a motivated Honduras Club into Azteca on September 9th realizing that a draw could put them in a very strong qualifying position.
Just four hours away!
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I'm with you man. I can hardly concentrate today. This is a BIG ONE.
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