The U.S. men's national soccer team "completes its pre-World Cup schedule" with a June 7 game against Nigeria at EverBank Field, and "expectations are high" for ticket sales, according to Ryan O'Halloran of the FLORIDA TIMES-UNION. EverBank Field in '12 drew 44,438 fans for a Scotland-U.S. match, "far more than games in Phoenix, Kansas City, Tampa and Columbus during the same summer." A total of 70,000 tickets "will go on sale at a date to be determined" for the June 7 match, which was announced on Thursday along with two others. Jacksonville Mayor Alvin Brown said, "I’m optimistic that if it won’t be a sellout, it will be close. This is a big deal for the city to be the last stop and for them to be here a whole week before the game." Officials said that the city "landed on U.S. Soccer’s radar by drawing the big crowd two years ago" for Scotland-U.S. Brown: "That had a major impact. There were a lot of skeptics for that match -- they thought we would get only 17,000 or 18,000 people and we had (nearly) 45,000. That solidified the city in terms of how many people were excited about soccer and the demand here." O'Halloran notes the Jaguars "are co-sponsoring the match along with SMG, which operates EverBank Field." Jaguars President Mark Lamping said that stadium's ongoing construction project "won’t greatly impact the number of seats that will be available" (FLORIDA TIMES-UNION, 3/7).
OTHER MATCHES PLANNED: In S.F., Kale Williams notes the USMNT also will play Azerbaijan at Candlestick Park on May 27 as part of its "three-match tuneup series." Another game will be against Turkey at Red Bull Arena on June 1. Though it "hasn't been officially announced, the U.S. team is expected to train at Stanford for the week prior to the game" at Candlestick (S.F. CHRONICLE, 3/7).
