The United States faced Mexico on Saturday, Oct. 10 at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California at 6 pm PT for the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football -- most popularly known as the CONCACAF Cup. American fans were fired up Friday when Fox Sports 1 released an ad promoted the soccer match starring Donald Trump.
Live updates can be found here.
The US-Mexico soccer match, described by Fox Sports 1 as "a one-match winner-take-all playoff," has been a thrilling event. The winning team gets the ticket for the 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia. The New York Times described the tournament as "an important dress rehearsal for the 2018 World Cup." So much so that when Fox Sports 1's ad came out, American soccer fans called foul, saying that it was uncalled for.
In the video, snippets of the US and Mexican teams playing soccer where intercepted with clips of Trump's speech made in one of his presidential campaigns. "Our country has tremendous potential, and these are the best and the finest. Bigger, better and stronger and we will make America great again," Trump said in the video. "I love the Mexican people, they have amazing spirit," Trump said at the latter part.
Tweets, first seen by The Times, condemned Fox Sports for the advert. Travis Waldron said Fox don't seem to understand the demographics of the American soccer-watching public. Thrace stressed that Trump has spouted gross racist rants against Mexicans, so Fox should stop the advert right away.
Andrea Canales emphasized that Latino immigrants have been a huge part of US Men's National Team for years.
Herculez Gomez remained positive that not all Fox employees or soccer fans were impressed by the advert.
In a tweet from Trump, first seen by the Politico, the presidential candidate wished the US team good luck. Pitted against Mexico, "it should be a great game," he tweeted.
Tricolor, who will play for Mexico, arrived in Los Angeles on Thursday. The team is focused with the game and the game only, blocking all external distractions. In an interview posted on CONCACAF website, defender Miguel Layun said he viewed US and Mexico as simply two great teams playing for a ticket to the Confederations Cup.
In a separate interview, Goalkeeper Moises Munoz said the competition between the two teams is very good; his team, however, is all about business and focused on what it needs to do to win.
"If we have the opportunity to our best football into practice, and we do it individually or as a group, it should not be a problem to overcome the United States," Munoz said. "What we want to do is to talk on the field of play. What is really important is what we do on the pitch. What happens off of it does not matter," he said.
The Mexico-US CONCACAF Cup airs live in prime time on Fox Sports 1 on Oct. 10 at 9:30 pm ET.
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