Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Preparing For The 2010 World Cup Finals

This evening I've been watching the USA men's soccer team play a friendly against the Czech Republic, which we lost 4-2 in Hartford. The match was a warmup for next month's World Cup Finals in South Africa.

With the final roster cuts to be made tomorrow, it was the last chance for bubble players to make their case for a roster spot. Coach Bob Bradley said 4-6 slots on the 23 man roster were still in flux.

The USA will next play a friendly against Turkey on Saturday in Philadelphia (1:30 P.M. on ESPN2). The last game before the Finals will be an exhibition against Australia (G'day, mates!) in South Africa on June 5.

Tonight our players wore the new kit for the 2010 Finals for the first time. It's essentially a modernization of our 1950 kit. For you non-fans, in 1950 was the biggest win in American soccer history, a 1-0 victory over England in the World Cup Finals in Brazil. Our first opponent in this year's Finals: England. (We're going to curse them with those kits!)

The opening match for the 2010 World Cup Finals will be June 11, with host South Africa taking on Mexico.

For those planning on watching games here in the U.S., the good news is that kickoffs for first matches will be at 8:30 A.M. EDT. That beats the heck out of the times we saw in South Korea.

The official USA soccer website is at http://www.ussoccer.com Also, all World Cup Finals matches will be available online at http://www.espn3.com

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was a great final! Good memories!
!!!!

World Cup Gossip

Avenging Archangel said...

"was a great final"? It doesn't start until June 11.