COLUMBUS, OH - The United States Men's National Team (USMNT) will host the Mexican National Team (aka El Tri) in a crucial game on the road to next year's FIFA World Cup in Brazil. More than just a chance to advance to the world's biggest soccer competition is in play when "Yankees" and "Aztecs" meet in Columbus, Ohio; these are the two most dominant soccer nations in the region and a whole lot of pride will be disputed on the field.

The match is scheduled for Tuesday, September 10 at 8:00PM local time (5:00PM pacific time) from the Columbus Crew Stadium in Columbus, Ohio. The match will be televised live across the United States in Spanish on Unimas and in English on ESPN.

Both teams took surprising losses on Friday night to Central American teams and will be looking to bounce back on their rival's expense. Mexico will be the one with the bigger need for points since they currently sit in fourth place on the six team table and outside of the direct qualification zone. USMNT sit in a comfortable position in second place but will not want to complicate things heading into the final two games, so they'll be looking for a win over Mexico to official seal their ticket to Brazil 2014.

The loss that Mexico suffered on Friday night ended costing manager Jose Manuel "Chepo" de la Torre his job and his assistant Luis Fernando Tena will be taking the helm of the team at least for this important match against USMNT. Tena is well known for leading the Mexican U-23 to win the Olympic Gold Medal last summer, and he'll have a number of his olympic players on the squad for this qualification game.

Tena will have only had three days to work with the team so he advised everyone in his presentation press conference to not expect any huge changes. But with changes or not Mexico still need to pick up points or else their World Cup participation will be in serious jeopardy since Panama who is currently in fifth place are pushing hard and are not that far behind El Tri.

In the USMNT camp manager Jürgan Klinsmann called upon four new player to his squad following Friday night's 3-1 defeat to Costa Rica. Tijuana Xolos midfielder Joe Corona was one of those four players called up for the Mexico match along with fellow Liga MX player Jose Francisco "Gringo" Torres and Brad Davis, and Clarence Goodson.

These four players were called up to cover the absences of Michael Bradley who suffered a sprained ankle in Costa Rica and Jozy Altidore, Geoff Cameron and Matt Besler all who have picked up yellow card accumulation suspensions.

Stay connected to San Diego Red through our Facebook and Twitter.

jonny.rico@sandiegored.com (@jonyrico)