Every four years we have to go to Azteca to play Mexico. The attitude, smog, and well hostile environment (understatement) all contribute to Mexico never losing there. Now I know our national teams go high attitude places to practice different times like when the US prepared for South Africa. So why don't we start hosting more games in high attitude places? Note:I still don't think we need a true national stadium as it's better to let the entire nation have a chance to see our team up close. However, if it's clear high attitude stadiums such as Bolivia, Ecuador, and Columbia have a true advantage would it hurt to try to have a few games in higher attitude? Plus it would help prepare our teams for stadiums like Azteca and potentially Brazil in 2014.
How about setting up our next Camp Strudel in San Quentin so our young guns can get used to a hostile environment?
Well the two highest elevation big cities in the country are Denver and Albuqueque (my home town). Denver has mile high (76K capacity) and Dicks Sporting Goods Park (18K). All Albuquerque has is University Stadium (39K). All 3 of which have hosted international matches before. Problem is that Denver is still about 800 meters below Azteca and Albuquerque is 1000 below. THey would help but they wouldn't match it.
I believe you are referring to altitude not attitude. however to your point of altitude... We've qualified for every world cup since, what, 1990 so i'd argue that it's worrying about something that does not matter and does not make the US better. We've won qualification a couple times anyways. So even if it mattered the end result would be the exact same. The U.S qualifies for the world cup. They say it takes 3 to 6 weeks to acclimatize yourself to altitude and it's quite rare in modern football to have 3 weeks to spend in a single location to train. We are having a game on Wednesday at altitude. There's not 3 weeks to acclimatize and there won't normally be. and you bring up actually playing at altitude to help in Azteca. It would have not helped one bit to have held a game in Denver a 2 months ago (our last home game was June 8, 2012). It would have been 8 weeks ago. Also, many of the Mexican players don't just play one game at altitude with their National team but live at altitude, train at altitude and play every week at altitude for their club. I don't know what all the elevations are of all the Mexican cities but two of their biggest clubs Chivas and Club America are at elevation. Club America is just short of Denver elevation, and Mexico City is higher so they've got two major pools of talent at elevation almost 24/7. Mexican players also emphasize many of the technical skills of passing and tight control that we do not and thus when we play in Mexico, we lose the ball, pass poorly, miss control passes and waste tons of energy chasing balls then giving it right back and chasing again. As for Brazil, i'm not positive about the elevations of the cities but considering how much they and Argentina complain to Fifa about playing at elevation i don't guess it will be a big issue in 2014. It is my understanding that the bigger deal may be large changes in climate from really cold to really hot. I think worrying about elevation is a bit of a red herring for us. If we really want to move towards winning a world cup I think we'd do better to focus on the things that win games rather then simply moving where we occasionally play. If you want to win at altitude you don't want to run so we need to develop stop giving the ball away. So you keep possession, you don't boot low percentage balls into corners in hopes that someone can latch on to it. You don't hit hopeful balls from back to front. It means that you play the short, simple, on the ground pass to the guy that's wide open 10 yards from you rather then a high, hard to handle ball to a guy that's 30 yards away with two defenders in the way. You don't play three central defensive midfielders that are not comfortable in possession, and you move toward emphasizing holding possession, clinical first touch, players that dribble with tight control, that can shield the ball and play one touch football that forces the other team to run and chase rather then our team allowing us to rest on the ball. That also means players have to be fit enough to move into and out of space making themselves constantly available and moving off the ball is not something our players do well on a consistent basis against quality opponents.
If we get ourselves in a position where we NEED to win at Azteca, then the wheels have really come off. A couple of cycles ago Argentina sent a domestic based team to Bolivia a couple of weeks before their qualifier and won. They then used their A team 4 days later to win a home a qualifier. They used completely different rosters for back to back qualifiers. We have no where close to that kind of depth. An acclimated "B" team would still most likely lose in Azteca. If we acclimate the A team, we are still probably looking at a loss, and would I would not risk losing the other qualifier, if it is 4 days earlier, by playing the B team, while the A team is in Mexico City.
Yes, but he´s talking about the 06 WC qualifiers. Argentina won 2-1 in Bolivia with a different team that faced Colombia in Argentina days after (and won 1-0).
I know, I wasn't really questioning the games he brought up, just bringing up other Argentine results in Bolivia, more to point out that altitude can kill anyone.
Smog is not a problem. Mexico City is not in the 80's anymore. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/w...dens-in-mexico-a-symbol-of-progress.html?_r=1
The USMNT has not attempted to acclimate to the altitude in Mexico. They fly in as late as they can, probably the night before. It will be in the mid-70s F. game-time, which isn't bad. The crowd and refereeing usually make the biggest difference playing there. I think JK is in for a rude awakening tomorrow night.
There are several reasons, I'll try to be as brief as I can. Lets start with Mexico and why playing at altitude is an advantage for them. The majority of their players play in the Liga Mex (or whatever its called now). About 70% of the teams play in cities with an elevation as high or higher than Denver. Translation. Pretty much all of their players play the vast majority of games at high altitude, meaning their entire team is acclimated to that, meaning they have an advantage when teams not acclimated to altitude come to visit. Now lets look at the US. Most of our players play in Europe....in cities that are pretty much at sea level. This means that they aren't acclimated to playing at altitude, so playing more games at altitude would actually be a disadvantage. Its pretty simple if you just look at it logically.
Maybe that was Chicarito's problem...he wasn't used to the altitude. As more and more Mexicans play in Europe. I wonder if the Azteca advantage lessens a bit...
War Memorial Stadium, Laramie, Wyoming. Welcome to 7300 feet, baby... (I'd have thought a WAC/Mountain West guy would be all over that one...)
you dont have to go to altitude http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyperbaric_medicine get a hyberbarric chamber and sleep in it you get all the benefits of the altitude, yet can train at sea level