Editorial (June 7, 2017) – The United States Men’s National Team has a huge World Cup Qualifier at Mexico this Sunday. But before that, they have a (nearly) must-win game in Colorado against Trinidad & Tobago. The players and coaches aren’t even thinking about El Tri right now. The Soca Warriors have their full attention.
USMNT Not Looking Past Trinidad & Tobago Ahead Of Mexico Clash
Christian Pulisic said it best: “The Mexico game isn’t in our head at all yet. It doesn’t even start until we beat Trinidad. We’ll do anything we can to win that game.” The team knows that tomorrow night’s match is probably a needed three points for them.
While the camp started out talking about both, but this week has all been about Thursday’s game. “As soon as we got into camp, the hones was on Trinidad and Mexico. From four days out from [the Trinidad game], the focus has all been on them,” Tim Howard explained at training on Wednesday afternoon.
Head Coach Bruce Arena did have the team spend some time preping for Venezuela, but they did not go in depth on them as a team. In training and video, they’ve prepared fully for T&T and will begin preparation for El Tri after tomorrow.
The players have also been shrugging off the logistics of the number of days off and the altitude. “We’re not all that worried about the specifics. We’ve played here before. We’ve followed a game here with a game at Azteca. We feel good about the week of preparation,” said Captain Michael Bradley. He added “The atmosphere around home qualifiers is special and unique. All our focus is on that game tomorrow night.”
The Yanks will look to take care of business tomorrow night. Then with that result, they’ll look to get what is ideal/possible on the road: “First game we definitely want to win. Especially at home. Then we go down to Mexico and we just want to get the best result we can,” Pulisic explained.
No excuses about altitude. No focus on Mexico. Nothing but the task at hand: getting three points against Trinidad &Tobago.
