Selecting to play soccer outside in early February in Minnesota doesn’t look like the wisest concept.
However that's what america males’s nationwide staff determined to do to achieve a supposed benefit over Honduras on Wednesday night time for a World Cup qualifying match in St. Paul, the place the kickoff temperature was 2 levels with an actual really feel of -14. The outcome? A 3-0 win for the USMNT, and two Honduras gamers leaving the sport at halftime, considered one of them because of a reported case of hypothermia.
Earlier than the match, Honduras coach Hernan Dario Gomez blasted US Soccer over the choice to play the sport in such circumstances.
“It’s inconceivable that a energy in each sense would convey you right here to play a sport and get a outcome. The sport hasn’t began, however I can’t look ahead to it to finish. As a result of it’s not for having fun with, it’s for struggling,” mentioned Gomez, who added after the match that a few of his gamers wanted an IV.
The speculation for the US was that its Central American foes wouldn't be used to the chilly. Nonetheless, questions have been raised about participant security. A number of USMNT gamers remarked after the sport about how chilly it was, with goalkeeper Matt Turner saying his “boogers are frozen.”
USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter — who additionally got here beneath fireplace on Twitter for posing for an image with followers whereas the sport was nonetheless occurring — defended the choice to play the sport in St. Paul after the win.
“We offered Honduras and their workers and the referees with (chilly)-weather gear, we offered them with head gear, making an attempt to make it a safer setting for them to play in,” Berhalter mentioned, based on The Athletic. “Once we go all the way down to these nations and it’s 90 levels and 90 p.c dew level and it’s insufferable humidity and guys are getting dehydrated and cramping up and getting warmth exhaustion, that’s the character of our competitors.
“Once we scheduled this sport on this location, you need to go by every day common temperatures. And it was the very best guess, we needed to reduce journey, we knew we had been going to be taking part in in chilly climate in two of the video games and we figured to do it within the third sport, as nicely, as an alternative of switching climates. A chilly spell got here by means of and it’s one thing we are able to’t management, however all we are able to do as soon as that occurs is attempt to mitigate the danger by having (chilly)-weather gear and going on the market and competing, and we did that.”
Earlier than the sport began, broadcasters for the Spanish-language community, TUDN, moist a T-shirt and confirmed that it rapidly turned fully frozen.
The win leaves the USMNT in a powerful place to qualify for the 2022 World Cup. The staff is in second place, 4 factors behind Canada, with three qualifying video games remaining. The highest three groups within the eight-team CONCACAF standings will qualify for the World Cup, whereas the fourth-place staff will enter right into a playoff in opposition to a staff from one other area.
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