The United States and Mexico are playing in a World Cup friendly live on Wednesday night and the match for the national teams comes from University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona at 11 pm ET on ESPN and the WatchESPN website and gives the USA team a chance to look at their roster before the final picks are made and both sides will be looking for strong performances from their top players as the Brazil soccer event gets closer.
The United States and manager Jurgen Klinsmann are looking to win their second match in a row against Mexico and the least one came back in September and that was in World Cup CONCACAF qualifying and now both teams have their tickets punched heading to Brazil for 2014. The US team lost their last international friendly away against Ukraine and before that they won against South Korea and that was their first match of the year after their successful campaign in 2013.
The US has matches coming up, but those will be after the final rosters are set and they play against Azerbaijan at Candlestick Park and then with Turkey at Red Bull Arena before their final test coming against Nigeria at EverBank Field in June before heading to Brazil. Klinsmann is trying to get his final rosters set and he was very upset with a couple of decisions that came down over the past couple weeks, including the suspension of Clint Dempsey in the MLS over the past two games along with the fact that DaMarcus Beasley and Michael Orozco were not allowed to get released by their Mexican teams for the friendly on Wednesday night in Arizona.
Klinsmann railed against the MLS for suspending Dempsey, not saying that he didn't commit the foul they said, but because he is the most fouled player in the league and that needs to be taken into consideration and he was also mad because the team has a limited amount of playing time together and now Dempsey has been off the pitch for over a week heading into the game. Mexican League team Puebla kept Orozco and Beasley and they had every right to since the match was not on an international calendar date, but that did not stop Klinsmann, who said that he was very angry and since clubs release their players all the time, this time should have been no different.
The US team and other clubs are getting ready for their World Cup camps and Klinsmann had hoped to have as many major players in the friendly as he could have. The Mexican team comes in after scratching their way into the tournament and they are into the World Cup and they have a busy May schedule coming up after playing against the US, as they matchup with Israel at Azteca Stadium and then will play friendlies with Ecuador at AT&T Stadium before a match with Bosnia-Herzegovina at Soldier Field where the Bears play and then the team finishes up with a very anticipated match with Ronaldo and Portugal at Gillette Stadium as their last match before the World Cup schedule begins.
Check here for the United States and Mexico coverage of the international match streaming from the ESPN.com website.