Official: Mexico take on New Zealand October 8th in Nashville

The friendly was announced months ago but the opponent is only now being confirmed. El Tri will play New Zealand October 8th in Nashville, Tennessee. The game will, of course, be played in an NFL stadium with a capacity of nearly 70k. FIFA’s international break in October comes at a time where the other confederations have World Cup Qualifying games scheduled. That limited Mexico’s options to other CONCACAF nations and certain Oceania nations. While fans will not be happy at the quality of opponent (NZ are ranked 93rd in FIFA’s rankings), Mexico/SUM could not have found a much “better” game.

Interesting to note, it was announced that 20k tickets were sold before the opponent was announced today. To put that number into perspective, the USMNT have played four friendlies this year in America, they have sold an average of 9,216 tickets to those games.

Mexico will likely play Guatemala on October 11th as the final game before the Hex begins in November. The rumored location for that game is Chicago but nothing has been confirmed or announced.

Molero game or just bad timing?