U.S. National team to play in Houston…..just kidding, it’s the return of “El Tri”

Lets face it.
The chances of catching the U.S. National team and Landon Donovan in a stand alone game in Houston just may never happen but it would be a great litmus test.
I believe if the U.S. national team played in Houston against someone other than Mexico they would draw over 20,000. Not quite the sell-out numbers of Mexico but solid in a soccer market that has a huge population of Mexican soccer fans but also others from those born in the states to England, El Salvador, Greece, Turkey, Nigeria, and on that are huge soccer fans.
So the big announcement from the Mexican Federation today was that Mexico will do a six city U.S. trip.
“The U.S. tour allows us to test our squad while giving our fans from all parts of the country the chance to send us to South Africa,” said the Mexican Federation’s Nestor de la Torre.

So the fans that are getting the chance to see the Mexican National team are all those living in the United States not those living in Mexico. What Nestor left out is that doing a tour in the United States like this will generate far more revenue than anything that can be put together in Mexico. The following six games should draw between 375,000 to 450,00 fans which translated means “big bucks”. We already knew that Mexico is playing more games in the U.S. from the standpoint of exhibition or “friendly” matches. The team remains an amazing draw. So here are the tour dates with our fair city of Houston being fortunate enough to get the last game against an undetermined opponent at Reliant Stadium.

Feb. 24 vs. Bolivia at Candlestick Park
March 3 vs. New Zealand at Rose Bowl
March 24 vs. Iceland at Bank America Stadium in Charlotte
May 7 vs. Ecuador at new Meadowlands Stadium
May 10 vs. Senegal at Soldier Field
May 13 vs Team Adidas at Reliant Stadium
May 16th vs. Chile in Azteca Stadium