Dennis Schneidler/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Mexico is the measuring stick. The United States men’s soccer team can try new things against Ecuador and Chile and learn lessons against Panama and Jamaica. But the true tests of where the team is, and where it wants to go, always come in matches against Mexico, the Americans’ most bitter rival.
Before Friday’s exhibition at MetLife Stadium, the teams’ most recent collision came only eight weeks ago, when Mexico defeated the Americans in the final of the Gold Cup, the region’s biennial championship. The result, a 1-0 United States loss that had offered the chance for a young American team to announce itself, stung for those who took part in it.