Three video games up, three video games down, three straight wins.
After a tough stretch wherein the U.S. Males’s Nationwide Workforce misplaced to Turkey and Switzerland, the People are again on monitor. They’ve certified for the knockout rounds of the 2025 Concacaf Gold Cup following nerve-settling wins over Trinidad and Tobago, Saudi Arabia and Haiti.
Up subsequent for the USMNT within the quarterfinals, although, is a harmful foe: the Ticos of Costa Rica. The groups have performed one another dozens of instances and established a fierce rivalry.
However the place did that rivalry begin? And the way will it inform this Gold Cup quarterfinal? Right here’s the story of the USMNT-Ticos rivalry, advised by means of just a few key video games:
March 22, 2013: The Snow Clasico
The USMNT and Costa Rica have been battling one another because the Seventies, however their fashionable rivalry started in Commerce Metropolis, Colorado on the qualification path for the 2014 World Cup. Each groups entered this match hungry for a victory: That they had didn’t win their opening video games and considered this fixture as their greatest option to get their World Cup qualification again on monitor. It was set to be a traditional earlier than it even began.
Enter the fickle Colorado climate. As the beginning drew nearer, the clouds over Commerce Metropolis grew thicker, and earlier than lengthy Dick’s Sporting Items Park was engulfed in a late spring blizzard.
The sport started as scheduled in a near-opaque cloud of snow. Costa Rica battled admirably, particularly for a workforce with out a lot snow expertise, however the USMNT received 1-0 on a Clint Dempsey objective within the first half.
