Freezer Burn
If you’re wondering how cold the USMNT’s World Cup Qualifier in Minnesota was, this frozen t-shirt pretty much says it all
On Wednesday night, the U.S. Men’s National Team took the field in Saint Paul, Minnesota for a pivotal qualification game against Honduras. If you were just flipping through the channels, you might have thought soccer was now part of the Winter Olympics, but with temperatures hovering around three degrees at kickoff, it was actually much colder at Allianz Field than Beijing. Instead, the game was an important World Cup qualifier for the U.S. team. They desperately needed to claim all three points to aid their push for Quatar next November, so instead of postponing the match, they instead used the conditions to their advantage.
Nothing gives you a leg up on the competition like good old-fashioned hypothermia. The truly indelible image of the evening, however, came courtesy of the TUDN USA broadcast, who dampened a t-shirt and letting it sit in the elements for a couple of minutes during "warm" ups. You can probably guess what happened next.
Needless to say, the decision to go ahead with the match, which the USMNT won 3-0, was viewed as something of a sham. Even the US’s own Timothy Weah threatened to retire if he had to play in weather like that again. He was only half joking. The real blame, however, falls to CONCACAF organizers, who scheduled a World Cup qualifier in Minnesota in February … not that it bothered these maniacs any.