USAvMEX at The Pub for Football Friday

<div id="attachment_410" style="width: 438px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="http://yatpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/15000053_10155639395702619_1708387298456034815_o.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-410" class="wp-image-410" src="http://yatpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/15000053_10155639395702619_1708387298456034815_o-300x150.jpg" alt="USAvMEX" width="428" height="214" srcset="http://yatpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/15000053_10155639395702619_1708387298456034815_o-300x150.jpg 300w, http://yatpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/15000053_10155639395702619_1708387298456034815_o-768x384.jpg 768w, http://yatpundit.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/15000053_10155639395702619_1708387298456034815_o.jpg 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 428px) 100vw, 428px" /></a><p id="caption-attachment-410" class="wp-caption-text">USA vs Mexico!</p></div> <h3>YatPundit&#8217;s Pub is all about The Beautiful Game</h3> <p>USAvMEX tonight! We&#8217;re fans of Association Football here at YatPundit&#8217;s Pub. Specifically, we follow and support two soccer teams: <a href="http://arsenal.co.uk">Arsenal Football Club</a>, that wonderful North London side that wears red. My sons support the team from Manchester, UK, that also wears red, so there&#8217;s a lot of banter about when they&#8217;re home or we&#8217;re on the phone. That&#8217;s as it should be when folks are passionate about their side.</p> <p>Soccer always improves my mood when it comes to whatever else is going on in the world. In the aftermath of Tuesday, that&#8217;s important. This weekend is what&#8217;s known as an &#8220;international break&#8221; in the club season. The national teams compete about once a month as they move forward in qualifying for the World Cup. The next World Cup Final tournament will be in the summer of 2018, in Russia. Each continent has a federation that oversees competition for the spots in the final tournament for their countries.</p> <h3>USAvMEX</h3> <p>Here in the North America, that federation is the Confederation of North, Central American and Caribbean Association Football, or CONCACAF. <a href="http://ussoccer.com">US Soccer&#8217;s Men&#8217;s National Team</a> faces Mexico tonight, in their quest for a spot in WC2018. Columbus, Ohio hosts the match. Since 2001, Team USA has not lost to Mexico when they&#8217;ve played in Columbus.</p> <p><script height="643px" width="1143px" src="http://player.ooyala.com/iframe.js#ec=o2dmVpNzE68qT42h8V6z_zoFw6n_g1JR&#038;pbid=MzA3Y2QyZTc2MGNjN2U3ODgxNmNmNzVj"></script></p> <p>As they say in politics, the &#8220;optics&#8221; of playing in Columbus are awful. The reason is simple: there are very few Mexico fans in that city, when compared to other cities, like Los Angeles, Dallas, or Houston. This is one of those occasions where USA supporters don&#8217;t care about optics, because we want the win. I&#8217;m all about having USA-Mexico friendly matches in the warmer cities where there&#8217;s a big Mexican/Mexican-American population. It makes money for US Soccer and sells a lot of bad stadium beer.</p> <p>This game, though? Vamanos, USA!</p> <p>The post <a rel="nofollow" href="http://yatpundit.com/2016/11/11/usavmex/">USAvMEX at The Pub for Football Friday</a> appeared first on <a rel="nofollow" href="http://yatpundit.com">YatPundit</a>.</p>