Hi, I'm Grant Wall, and welcome to the Planet Football Podcast, where I go in-depth with the most intriguing

people in the world of soccer.

On today's show, with USA-Mexico this week, five US men's national team figures talk

about the history of the Dossacero Games, including Landon Donovan, who explains what Columbus, Ohio has come to mean to this storied rivalry.

I think what happened is Columbus was the first soccer specific stadium in this country, so by default it became our home field and I

think over the years fans realized that they could make this a real home field

environment all that and more coming up. This is a special

podcast where I spend a few minutes talking to one figure from each of the five

Dossa Sero games over the years, featuring Bruce Arena,

Brian McBride, Claudia Reyna, Michael Bradley, and Landon Donovan.

We'll start with Arena on 2001, the first Dossacero in Columbus, when bitterly

cold temperatures in February caused Mexican journalists to dub this game, La Guira Freya, the Cold War.

The US starting lineup for 2001, Brad Friedel, David Reggie, Jeff Agis, Eddie Pope, Tony

Santa, Kobe Jones, Chris Armis, Claudia Reyna, Ernie Stewart, Brian McBride, and Joe Max

Moore.

Bruce Arena, who was the coach of that U.S. men's national team.

Thanks for joining me, Bruce.

It's a pleasure to be on Grant.

So I've got a lot of questions here, but I want to start because this was the first Columbus game of this series between the USA and

Mexico. What do you remember about how the decision was made to play this game in Columbus?

Well, you know, I was in my position for probably a little over two years with U.S. soccer

and at the time I think we were still trying to find ourselves in terms of the

...