MEXICO CITY – If the only issues playing soccer at Estadio Azteca were the heat, altitude and air quality, the U.S. national team surely would have won a World Cup qualifying match there by now.
Or if the stream of insults – as well as objects – hurled by the some 90,000 fanatics were all that stood in the way, the Americans probably would have escaped the historic cauldron with something better than two scoreless draws in official competition since 1972.
And if the Mexican team, the famed El Tri, weren’t so darn good at this game, the eternal hand-wringing by U.