By the time Alberth Elis had fallen to the icy turf at Allianz Field three times and taken long enough to get up that one could have screened “Lawrence of Arabia” before he was back on his feet, he left no doubt the most prominent player in Honduras’ lineup wanted to be 3,000 miles from Minnesota. Preferably 3,000 miles south.
Who could blame him? The air was not cold. It was frigid. It was madness. While it was 80 degrees back home in San Pedro Sula, it was 5 degrees and falling in St. Paul, with a wind chill factor of minus-12. The World Cup qualifier between Honduras and the U.S. Men’s National Team meant nothing to his side and everything to the opposition. Honduras already was eliminated from reaching Qatar 2022; the Americans essentially were in a must-win situation.
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And the USMNT won.
And so it worked.
For all the agitation about choosing to play a February qualifying game in a location likely to produce single-digit nighttime temperatures — and it came from former USMNT players, columnists and fans of the team through podcasts, radio shows, columns and social media — it had precisely the effect coach Gregg Berhalter had promised when he first addressed the issue in advance of the penultimate CONCACAF qualifying window last week.
American soccer analysts were concerned the talent on this team would be compromised by the conditions, but young midfielder Weston McKennie scored the opening goal and gifted forward Christian Pulisic clinched it with the third goal in a 3-0 USMNT victory.
“They’re going to take a couple of breaths and it’s going to hit them like it never hit them before,” Berhalter said, and the evidence of his accuracy was all over the field.
At times, this was true literally. Backup goalkeeper Edrick Menjivar, who entered at halftime, went down twice, once because he was struck in the head by a shot that probably felt like an iceball.
Referee Oshane Nation saw this, watched the U.S. use three different substitution windows during play and Honduras two, and as the clock approached 90 minutes alerted the fourth official there would be no added time. He wanted to be warm again.
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USMNT defender Walker Zimmerman, named captain for the evening because Pulisic opened on the bench, told reporters he could see the impact of the weather on the Honduras players from the opening kickoff.
“To be honest, I don’t think they wanted any part of that tonight,” Zimmerman said. “You could just tell coming out for warmups, only sending out their starting 11, not coming out right after the half.
“As soon as we got that first goal — and especially the second goal — we felt like we were in really good form, in control of the game.”
The Honduras players fouled frequently in the opening minutes, in part because it was disruptive to the American attack but also because it required less exertion. One of those, however, came in the eighth minute, along the right wing just 15 yards outside the penalty box. With Pulisic on the bench and defensive midfielder Tyler Adams out injured, veteran Kellyn Acosta got to fill in for both, in a sense. He took the free kick and placed it right where McKennie could leap above the defense and head it inside the right post.
The second came on another Acosta free kick, which was just out of reach of several U.S. players but fell to Zimmerman’s feet. He slammed it into the net for his second international goal and first in three years.
“The hope is that it gives us a lot of momentum — not because we got three points, but the way we got three points,” Zimmerman said. “I thought it was a statement in the way we competed, went about the game, went about our business. And it definitely looked like the most dynamic performance we’ve had, especially this window.”
Pulisic entered the game in the 64th minute, and Berhalter never considered allowing him to take the rest of the night off because of the two-goal lead. It was a wise choice, because another free kick was awarded three minutes later on the right side, which Acosta drew the honor of taking even with Pulisic in the game. Acosta’s cross was directed toward the near post and headed into traffic by striker Ricardo Pepi. It glanced off Zimmerman’s knee and felt to Pulisic, who was able to strike it just inside the left post.
“I think the hardest thing to do as a coach is to talk to a player and tell him you support him and you’re behind him 100 percent, and then you don’t start him,” Berhalter said. “Players feel that you’re not supporting them.
“For Christian, it was a very difficult decision, but I felt it was the decision that was made to put him in the best possible position to make the impact we know he can make. When he’s in those positions on the field, he has the quality to make finishes like that, to score goals like that. And that’s the impact that he made for the group and really helped seal the victory for the team.
“It’s never easy when you’re a player — a high-profile player — and you’re not in the form of your life. But he’s a guy that means a heck of a lot for this team.”
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The Honduras delegation said it removed two players at halftime because they were affected by the adverse conditions. Berhalter was asked by an American reporter if that caused him to reevaluate the decision to play this game in that weather. It was a challenging question, because it was apparent this was new information for him and he was unaware if the players were seriously impacted.
He is aware, though, having both coached and played in qualifiers in the Caribbean and Central America, that CONCACAF opponents in those regions aren’t going out of their way to mitigate the heat and humidity. For a September 2017 qualifier against the USMNT, the Hondurans chose to play the game in the afternoon sun, with the temperature around 90 degrees. They did much the same in February 2013. The U.S. won neither of those games.
“We provided Honduras and their staff and the referees with warm weather gear . . . trying to make it a safe environment for them to play,” Berhalter said. “When we go down to those countries and it’s 90 degrees and 90 percent dew point, and it’s unbearable humidity and guys are getting dehydrated and cramping up and getting head exhaustion — you know, that’s the nature of our competition.”
This was record cold for a USMNT qualifier, but this was not the first time the Americans played such a game in extreme conditions. There was “La Guerra Fria” in Columbus, Ohio, against Mexico in February 2001 and the “Snow Classico” in Denver in March 2013, both significant American victories. If the U.S. completes the qualification process in March, this game figures to gain legendary status, as well.
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Berhalter was so appreciative of the fans who braved such conditions to present the USMNT with a home-crowd atmosphere he seized the opportunity during a long VAR stoppage to grant a selfie request to several spectators in the front row.
He was criticized on social media for this, of course, because he’s criticized if he puts too much syrup on his French toast. And the reporters’ questions he answered about the Minnesota weather did not come from the perspective of “Yep, you were right.”
“You’re asking the question insinuating we’re the only ones playing in these types of conditions,” he said, pointing to the weather Sunday in Ontario, where temperatures were in the teens. “So for us, we’re trying to minimize travel in the window and keep the weather somewhat consistent. And third thing is: We want to win our home games.”
Which they did. It’s OK for us to say we were wrong.
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