LOL
its all relative, it is definitely the toughest of the three.

So long as they're not play USA in USA, yeah. Unfortunately, if we played 100 home and home series, they'd win.

lol @ Mexico best team in CONCACAF. When's the last time they beat us outside of Mexico?

Yeah they are, but the US is nipping at their heels.

I'm not sure how serious you are but it seems pretty weird to me that this gets brought up by people on our side.

The US has won 2 matches outside of the US against Mexico ever. One was in 1934 in Italy, the other in the 2002 World Cup finals in Korea. Mexico has beaten the US 8 times outside of Mexico, most recently in 1999. You really think those three years of difference makes enough of a difference to warrant this point being made?

The US has looked better than Mexico lately when they've played, but that's largely because of a huge schedule imbalance. In the last 10 years they have played 6 friendlies, all of which took place in the United States. The US racked up 4 wins and 2 draws. In the three matches in Mexico in the last 10 years Mexico won all 3, though one went into extra time.

They got a result in Houston less than 5 months ago

It takes a lot of effort to make Mexico sound like the superior squad, but nobody was arguing about who was better 10 years ago, or 80 years ago.

In the 2000s, the US is 9-2-2 vs Mexico, and both losses were in Mexico City, by 1 goal. I understand home field advantage matters, and we've had much the best of it, but the rivalry hasn't been particularly close.

Calling a draw a result is a pleasant way to word it, but in reality, the Mexican team plays in that stadium more often than the US team, and their fans likely outnumbered ours as well, so I'm not sure where the advantage was supposed to come from.

For what it's worth, in the FIFA rankings the US is currently 21st while Mexico is 14th. In the ELO ratings, Mexico is 11th and the US is 19th.

It's reached the point today where the general rule is home team usually wins, and Mexico and the US have virtually guaranteed slots in the WC. I'm not sure where the seven or eight spot gap comes from (strength of opposition?) but I'm thinking the US and Mexico are pretty evenly matched.

Wikipedia was wrong. El Salvador advanced over Panama. So group C is
Costa Rica, El Salvador, Suriname and Haiti.

The US schedule is

8/20 @ Guatemala
9/6 @ Cuba
9/10 vs Trinidad & Tobago (Chicago)
10/11 vs Cuba (Washington D.C.)
10/15 @ Trinidad & Tobago
11/19 vs Guatemala (Denver)

The toughest game will be @ Guatemala especially since some of the core players will miss the game due to the Olympics.

You're looking at the wrong round: El Salvador beat Anguilla in the first round and Panama in the (most recent) second round.

Or, someone changed it before I got there, which is also possible.

Regarding Mexico-United States.

Would anyone consider a match played in a border state, with a pro-Mexican crowd to be a home match for the United States? I would say it would fair to call it neutral.

Mexico qualified for the knock-out round in each of the last four World Cups (winning their group twice). The other countries to accomplish this are Brazil, Italy and Germany.

Clearly Mexico are the more consistent side on the international scene. On a neutral field, they would be favored over the United States. I would be willing to bet anyone that Mexico will be more of a favorite at home against the United States than vice-versa in the final stage of qualifying.

However, the United States have bragging rights over Mexico due in part to their superior head-to-head record, but mostly because they won, on a neutral field, the most significant match ever played between the two countries.

Yeah, that pretty much describes the Houston game (a draw, as mentioned before). The Mexican league has a special playoff (the InterLiga) that they use to pick teams for the Copa Liberadores, that is all neutral-turf (i.e. in the United States), and Houston is always one of the venues.

Good analysis with the rest of the post.

There is no question that Suazo is the best player in CONCACAF, it isn't even close. He is probably the only player in the region who could be accurately described as world class.

I would consider a match in Houston or Los Angeles to be a home match for the US. I think it's pretty dumb to schedule anything but a friendly there against Mexico, but the US still gets to enjoy the usual advantages of playing at home with the obvious exception that the crowd is mixed but leaning toward Mexico and because of the geography of the US and Mexico, travel time is probably a wash.

Either way it's a fairly unique situation for sure.

Why though? It's not like a professional match, neither team gets to sleep in their own beds or anything, the travel time is at best a wash, and the crowd is at best neutral. Just because it's on US soil doesn't mean that there's an inherent advantage.

I would rather play USA than Mexico for the last world cup spot, I think its close though.
Btw part of a team skill is Home Advantage, I think fans do wieght in to decide which team is tougher, sorry but teams do feel the difference between playing on Houston (lol) and playing on Estambul( not so lol, even if u qualify there chances are ure going to get beaten up after the game ends).
Going into a staidum with 100k of people telling u ure mother is a whore is not the same than walking into a stadium with 20k mildly chanting USA! USA!!.
That said USA and Mexico are clearly superior and they wont miss the world cup unless they collapse badly.

Btw our qualifiers may be tougher but you guys are missing out on the passion and intensity of Conmbeol football!!

edit: Just in case it was not clear enough home advantage is one of the reason why I would choose USA over Mexico.

Just glad we don't have to play those south american teams, we'd never qualify. Two locks every WC and a bunch of other pretty decent teams. It would be a disaster for the game in this country if the US didn't make it. Only three days out of four years that most people here care about soccer. Although Euro is actually pretty huge with my friends these days including a bunch of people I didn't think liked soccer.

The US playing in the WC is big for the game as a whole in the US. People who wouldn't normally follow soccer will take more notice because they'll think the US is really good. They may in turn start watching the euro leagues, MLS, and other international competitions.

U.S. getting to play in Houston or L.A. is more of a home game for them which simply happens to have a pretty sizable contingent cheering for the visiting team. This is similar to the Yankees playing in Tampa Bay or Miami. Still doesn't make it a home-game for them even though sometimes it can be 45k out of 50k cheering for them.

Sure, U.S. stays in hotels there also. But it's not like they ONLY play Houston in such a venue really. I assume they have played other matches against other countries there too [not to mention all the games they have played in these stadiums in MLS play].

Mexico gets a much bigger home-field advantage in Mexico City due to likely being more comfortable with their surroundings and playing there far more frequently.
The altitude also has to make a huge difference for them vs. most teams I imagine.

I agree with this. Far fewer people here would watch the World Cup if somehow the U.S. failed to qualify.

Bunch of us from my rec-league soccer team went to a bar to watch the World Cup matches a couple years ago but also a few of our guys' friends from work who knew nothing about soccer came along as well. So a bunch of us who all play soccer together and know the sport okay are drinking beers and watching the game and having the usual conversation about the controversial red-cards [the US/Italy match] while the other guys didn't even know what offside was but ended up enjoying a soccer match on TV way more than they thought they ever could.

It's a slow process. But the more it is shown and the more the U.S. is able to do okay at this and not get embarrassed the more Americans will watch or, at least, understand what is going on.
You have far more Americans today who have a basic understanding of the game simply from it being on TV more and more.

ESPN has really been pushing their Euro-Cup coverage for example. And while it's not like Americans are going crazy watching this stuff it does end up making it onto Sportscenter and people do see some really cool goalie saves in shootouts or impressive goals or whatever even if they aren't paying attention to the tournament.
Way better than the Euro-Cup taking place with virtually zero coverage at all in the U.S. which is pretty much how it used to be.
The more it's shown the better off the sport can be here.

I didn't look very far back, but I think you're way off. In the last 2 years, the friendly against Mexico was the only time the US team played in Houston. In that time span, the Mexican team has played 4 games there. Every individual aspect of home field advantage (or at least all the ones I can think of) was either a wash, or advantage Mexico.

I don't know anyone who knows what offside is

cielo - interesting, didn't know that.
But the U.S. team not having played there together still doesn't mean those players are in exactly unfamiliar territory. These are stadiums they are far more comfortable in from their MLS experience.

I understand that Mexico brings enough fans and has enough experience there where any U.S. home-field advantage is essentially negated and it makes it close to neutral probably. But it is unlikely to be much more than that for Mexico I think.
Mexico's home-field advantage has to be WAY bigger in Mexico City especially with the altitude.

kung - Do you mean just the basics of offside or some of the more obscure exceptions that many fans wouldn't understand such as an attacking player being not involved in the play or that weird play with the defender falling behind the goal-line last week?

Anyway, the point is that it was a bunch of us guys on our group some of whom knew a fair amount about soccer with some people who likely had never watched a game in their lives and didn't know how many players there were per side or anything. They just knew you tried to kick the ball into the net. Those guys ended up getting into the match way more than I think even they expected.