The US men’s national team are heading back to Columbus for a World Cup Qualifier, where they’ll meet El Salvador on Jan. 27 before a first-ever qualifier at Allianz Field in Minnesota on Feb. 2 against Honduras, US Soccer announced Wednesday.
“As we have seen throughout the qualifying process so far, great stadiums and great atmospheres provide a huge advantage to our team,” USMNT head coach Gregg Berhalter said in a statement. “We’ve had fantastic experiences in Columbus and the Twin Cities and look forward to continuing our World Cup Qualifying campaign in front of our fans.”
This will be the USMNT's 12th World Cup Qualifier in Columbus, with the team 8-1-2 in previous matches. That includes a 2-1 comeback win over Costa Rica in October at a soldout Lower.com Field, the new home of Columbus Crew.
Allianz Field, the home of Minnesota United, will host Berhalter’s side for the second time after the US opened their 2019 Concacaf Gold Cup campaign there with a 4-0 win over Guyana.
To prepare for the January/February window of qualifiers, the USMNT will conduct a training camp in Carson, Calif. from Dec. 5-18 and will face Bosnia and Herzegovina on Dec. 18 (8 pm ET | FS1, UniMás, TUDN) at LA Galaxy's Dignity Health Sports Park in an international friendly.
In between the El Salvador and Honduras matches, the USMNT will travel to face Canada on Jan. 30 as part of the Octagonal's three-match windows.
Just past the halfway point of qualification in the Octagonal stage, the United States are second with 15 points, one point behind leader Canada, but only one point ahead of Mexico and Panama in the battle to secure three automatic berths to the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. The fourth-place team heads to an inter-confederation playoff.
