Local fans of the U.S. men’s national soccer team have caught a break: The home team is coming to U.S. Bank Stadium on Sunday.
The USA team finished off the group stage of the CONCACAF Gold Cup as the winners of Group D, and will meet Group A runner-up Costa Rica Sunday at 6 p.m., in Minneapolis in the tournament quarterfinals. It’ll be the first time that either the men’s or women’s national team has played a knockout-round game in Minnesota.
Had either the USA or Mexico finished second in its group, the two teams would have been matched up in the quarterfinals, and that match likely would have been placed in Glendale, Ariz. That both teams ended up winning their respective groups gave Minneapolis a chance to host the USA instead. Mexico will play “guest team” Saudi Arabia in Glendale on Saturday.
This is the 19th consecutive time that the USMNT, traditionally one of the two heavyweights in the region, has qualified for the knockout round of the Gold Cup, which is the every-other-year championship for North America, Central America, and the Caribbean. The USA hasn’t lost a quarterfinal Gold Cup match since 2000.
The USA-Costa Rica game will be the second of a quarterfinal doubleheader on Sunday, with the first game at 3 p.m. That matchup won’t be announced until after the final group-stage games in Groups B and C, on Tuesday night — though the most likely scenario seems to be that it will involve Canada, and Minnesota United standouts Dayne St. Clair and Tani Oluwaseyi.
U.S. Bank Stadium is installing a natural-grass field this week for the Sunday games, a process that’s become fairly standard for artificial-turf football stadiums that are hosting summer soccer games. Other venues that normally have artificial surfaces for soccer, like BC Place in Vancouver and Lumen Field in Seattle, have installed grass for June home games in the Gold Cup or FIFA Club World Cup.
The men’s national team has played three previous games in Minnesota, all at Allianz Field in St. Paul — most famously a World Cup qualifier against Honduras on Feb. 2, 2022, which saw several players reportedly treated for hypothermia after temperatures plunged below zero.
This will be the second time that U.S. Bank Stadium has hosted one of the national teams. The women’s national team beat Switzerland 5-1 in a friendly, back in 2016. U.S. Bank Stadium has also hosted summer exhibitions between European teams, in 2016 and 2018.
