Concacaf zone: USA 1-2 Mexico
United States was not able to win points against its neighbor and rival Mexico allowing a goal on a set piece in the last moments of the match. Now USMNT faces another tough task in Costa Rica tomorrow and needs to come away with a result to not fall behind in the Russia 2018 qualifiers.
Coach Klinsmann comments:
“The message is very simple: We’ve got to go down there and get a result, which we will do. [Mexico is] the first of 10 qualifying games. It’s obviously the big one – Mexico is the biggest one we play – but we always know that with Mexico it’s guys eye-to-eye and it’s going to be a nail-biter. Sometimes it goes their way and other times it goes our way. I told them we’re going to correct it for Costa Rica and then in summer time we’ll go to Azteca and go for it at their home. It’s just part of the qualifying process, the whole long road.
“We haven’t won [there]. But the same way Mexico felt, we will get the first win in Costa Rica. I remember sitting in Honduras a couple years back – [US lost their] first game [in the Hexagonal], doom and gloom, World Cup’s over, but it’s the first game. We’ve got a whole bunch more to go. You have to go there and get three points to keep the doors open. It would be a tough one if Costa Rica goes out and wins so they have six points and you don’t’ know what Mexico is doing. So we have to go to Costa Rica and have that in our head that we have to get three points.
I think it’s a sense of anger in us. It’s a sense of urgency because you don’t want to be behind. All these Qualifying games are nail biters, all of these games are difficult, but that’s what the players are prepared for.”
