The eyes of Mexico will be on Austin next month, when the Mexican men's national team plays Chile on Dec. 8 at Q2 Stadium. Soccer United Marketing and Austin FC announced the details of the friendly match on Monday.
The game will mark the debut for El Tri in Austin, a city that has long adored it. Tickets will go quickly for a team that regularly sells out NFL-sized stadiums across the United States, but will make an exception to host this friendly at the new 20,500-seat home of Austin FC.
"This has been a conversation that's been going on for many months," Austin FC president Andy Loughnane said. "This is a very important event for the stadium to be able to showcase its world class nature to a new audience. But I think if you take a closer look at our community, we know that our soccer community represents a very diverse group of supporters, including a large group of Austin FC supporters who would identify El Tri as their favorite national team. That's very important to us."
Tickets for the match go on sale Thursday, Nov. 4 at 10 a.m. on SeatGeek.com and MexTour.org. Austin FC season ticket members and Oak Collective waitlist members, and fans are encouraged to pre-register at the MexTour website.
The match against Chile will be the sixth and final match of this year's U.S. tour for Mexico, in which El Tri has averaged more than 50,000 fans at matches in Dallas, Atlanta, Nashville, Los Angeles and Charlotte. Q2 Stadium has hosted three previous international matches, starting with the U.S. women against Nigeria followed by a Gold Cup semifinal featuring the U.S. men's national team and a USMNT World Cup qualifier against Jamaica last month. All three of those matches were sold out.
"By the time the Mexican national team steps onto the field to Q2 Stadium in December, there will have been 22 Soccer events with 22 sellouts," Loughnane said, referring to the 17 home Austin FC regular season matches, plus a friendly against Tigres and the four internationals. "That is a statement that Austin and Q2 Stadium are strong players in the soccer marketplace."
