Foxboro's future

Before Wednesday night's United States-Mexico match, U.S. Soccer Federation president Sunil Gulati and CEO/secretary general Dan Flynn held court for a roundtable with media members.

With Gillette Stadium not on the list of potential hosts for the semifinal round of World Cup qualifying, I asked where Foxboro stood in the federation's eyes, especially with the installation of FieldTurf during the 2006 NFL season.

“In general terms, leaving Foxboro out of it, we’re not playing in big stadiums in most of these games in the first round, and in a way, it’s hard to play in big stadiums for any of these games because of our opponents," Gulati said. "And we found out the hard way that even when we play in what we would hope is a home-field advantage-type venue, middle America, if we’re playing in a big stadium, we may still get outnumbered. (In) Birmingham, we ended up with a far bigger Guatemalan contingent than I expected (in 2005). Honduras (in 2001) in D.C., obviously.

"We’re going to play the qualifying games in places where everything is riding on winning the game. Foxboro’s been part of that. And in the case of Boston, (there's been) less of an issue with big numbers in the Hispanic community. But we’ve seen when we played El Salvador there or Costa Rica there, there’s been big numbers there.”

Flynn, however, mentioned the Americans' stellar history in Foxboro (7-0-3 at the old Foxboro Stadium, 9-1-1 at CMGI/Gillette) as a factor that can't be ignored.

“Our record is unbelievably good there, and the coach gets input here (when choosing venues), and there’s a comfort level with the surroundings and all those things that maybe creep into a coach’s mindset or a player’s mindset," he said. "The FieldTurf is a little bit unique, but quite frankly, around this country we bring in grass. That’s not what it used to be 10, 15 years ago. I don’t want to be flip about it; it is a lot of work and it is a little bit of extra worry, but our record there is very, very strong. So all of those things get factored in.”

Asked how Hartford's Rentschler Field factors into the equation in terms of serving as another option for New England-based matches, Flynn replied, "Options are good.”

Foxboro hosted two qualifiers in the 1998 World Cup cycle, three in the 2002 cycle and two in the 2006 cycle. Hartford got the nod for one match in the 2006 cycle.