USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter: 'There's tough, and there's Minnesota tough'

Tuesday's weather forecast for St. Paul predicts 65 degrees and partly cloudy skies.

The last time the U.S. men's team came to Allianz Field, it beat Honduras in a sold-out World Cup qualifier 3-0 on a bitterly cold winter's night in 2022.

Now the national team is back in Minnesota for the third time since Allianz Field opened in 2019. This time it's playing Oman on Tuesday night in the second of two friendlies, following Saturday's 3-0 victory over Uzbekistan in St. Louis.

The temperature was 5 degrees, the windchill 12 below at kickoff that February night.

"Was it that high?" U.S. men's team coach Gregg Berhalter asked.

His team played a qualifier in the middle of a northern winter that helped it return to the World Cup last November. It did so seeking home-country advantage over a Honduras team raised in tropical heat and humidity.

"Obviously, it wasn't ideal conditions to play soccer," U.S. team goalkeeper Matt Turner said, "but it was a game we learned a lot about ourselves. You can only control so much."

Turner wore tights that night. "Which really isn't like me," he said.

He wore a gaiter face mask and kept a thermos of hot tea in his goal. Turner started the game wearing a pouch — an item and idea borrowed from the Vikings quarterbacks — to keep his hands warm.

"But the referee nixed that pretty soon after kickoff, unfortunately," Turner said.

By halftime, three Honduran players subbed out of the game. Two of them, including the goalkeeper, reportedly were treated for hypothermia.

"It's a memorable game," Berhalter said. "It's about how you deal with conditions. We're asked to go to the equator and play games in 95 degrees with 89 percent humidity, and we have to deal with that."

Berhalter remembers most the crowd, announced at 19,202.

"I saw some fans without shirts on, and they're out there like it was warm out," he said. "It made me think people from Minnesota are tough. There's tough, and there's Minnesota tough, and we saw it that night."

Now on an early autumn night, the U.S. team will play at Allianz Field for the third time. It played a CONCACAF Gold Cup game there in 2019, too. The U.S. women's team also played friendlies at Allianz Field in 2019 and 2021.

"It shows how much the Minnesota community loves their football," Minnesota United veteran Michael Boxall said. "They're invested in football, in our team and in the national teams, too."

The U.S. is playing both opponents for the first time. Each is ranked in FIFA's Asian zone's top 10, aiming at an expanded World Cup format that will include eight Asian-zone teams in 2026.

Each is the kind of team the U.S. could meet when the World Cup comes to the United States, Canada and Mexico three short years away.

"You can't have enough teams to play going into the World Cup," U.S. team midfielder Brenden Aaronson said.

To get back to the World Cup, the U.S. seeks continuity and a defined playing style for a team that reached the round of 16 last December. The second-youngest team in Qatar, it was eliminated 3-1 by the Netherlands after it didn't qualify in 2018.

This September camp includes 12 players from that World Cup team and 16 players from the CONCACAF Nations League champion team that beat Canada 2-0 in June.

Berhalter is back, too, rehired in June after a six-month search.

Nine players on this current roster joined new clubs overseas this summer, including Turner to Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, Aaronson to Union Berlin, star Christian Pulisic to AC Milan and Tim Weah to Juventus.

A starter in 14 of the last 15 U.S. games, Turner left camp after Saturday's game for the birth of his second child. Backup Ethan Horvath will start in a stadium Turner won't forget.

"Not by choice, but if I had to I would," Turner said when asked if he'd play in that cold again. "Sometimes you just have to play regardless of the things you can't control. It definitely made me a stronger player."