San Antonio’s Toyota Field has hosted big games before in its 11 years of operation, but its biggest yet might come Saturday when the U.S. Men’s National Team hosts Slovenia in an international friendly.
The home of San Antonio FC, the facility owned by Bexar County and the City of San Antonio is just the third venue in the United Soccer League to host such a friendly.
“We’ve been able to witness from afar how successful San Antonio FC has been,” said Gregg Berhalter, head coach of the U.S. Men’s National Team (USMNT). “Soccer can bring together a community. You see it all across the United States how soccer has grown, and San Antonio is a great example of a community getting behind a team. We are really excited to be here.”
It will be just the third time the USMNT has played in San Antonio. The U.S. Soccer Federation announced that 9,000 tickets had been sold for the 2 p.m. game during a roster announcement press conference earlier this month. As of Wednesday, only limited standing-room tickets were available for the game, which will be televised on TNT and Telemundo.
“The opportunity to do this match at Toyota Field is amazing,” said Bobby Perez, chief legal officer for Spurs Sports & Entertainment, which owns San Antonio FC. “Our partnership with the city of San Antonio and Bexar County allows us to run this event and we’re really pumped up about it.”
The United States and Slovenia have met twice before. The United States leads the series 1-0-1, having beaten Slovenia 3-2 in Ljubljana back in 2011 and tied 2-2 with the Slovenians in the group stage of the 2010 World Cup.
The last time San Antonio hosted the national team was April 15, 2015, when the U.S. and Mexico met for a friendly before a sellout crowd of 64,369 at the Alamodome. The United States beat Mexico 2-0.
For its first outing of 2024, the USMNT is going with a roster whose average age is 23 years old.
“It’s a young roster,” Berhalter said. “It gives us an opportunity to work with these players because we have a busy year. For us it’s an opportunity to set the stage for what this year’s going to be like.”
Prior to the 2015 game against Mexico, the USMNT played a friendly with Costa Rica in San Antonio on June 14, 1988, at North East Independent School District’s Comalander Stadium. It was part of a weeklong tour of Texas by the U.S. team that included stops in Houston and Fort Worth. The United States beat Costa Rica 1-0 in the first game in San Antonio.
