USA's men step up on the pitch at 9:30 Eastern tonight to begin a quest for the 2015 CONCACAF Gold Cup. The US side is favored over the others in their group--Haiti, Honduras and Panama; but face three rough-tough teams and lenient officiating. Tonight, it's the Honduras side to overcome. US will utilize and evaluate some new, young players moving up from U-19 to replace regulars who are injured or on approved, temporary leave from the program.

Match date/time: Tuesday, 9:30 p.m. ET

Venue: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas

TV: FOX Sports 1 (U.S. - English), UniMas, Univision Deportes (U.S. - Spanish), Sportsnet World (Canada), BT Sport 2 (U.K.), Telesistema, GolTV (Honduras)

Online: FOX Sports Go, FOX Soccer 2 Go (U.S. - English), Univision Deportes en vivo (U.S. - Spanish), Sportsnet World Now (Canada), BT Sport (U.K.)

I got to see the US play Belize in the last Gold Cup. While the game was not close, seeing the national team is always special.

It was also cool to see Costa Rica play Cuba in the early game of the double header. The Costa Rican fans were great.

Back line was awful in this one. If this is a cup we want to win, we have to improve there.

The first 30 minutes were terrible and i dont know if it was our back line so much as it was our midfield gave too much space. I hate passive defense. Jose altidore looked very rusty. The USWNT passed beter that the men did.

Alvarado was bad. Don't think he will start Friday

Rekdiver wrote:The first 30 minutes were terrible and i dont know if it was our back line so much as it was our midfield gave too much space. I hate passive defense. Jose altidore looked very rusty. The USWNT passed beter that the men did.

Altidore was off his game as were several others. At least four other starters weren't present for the game--on leaves of absence. The 20 year-old fill-ins carried the water OK--but no break-out stars were in evidence. The pundits are in disagreement about our best men's team player--Bradley or Dempsey. Both were key ingredients last night as Dempsey scored two set piece headers off of Bradley assists.

Dempsey has been forced to relinquish the National Team Captain's arm band to Bradley--but Dempsey is scoring the goals of late. He has apparently lost the Captain's role as partial punishment for grabbing and ripping an official's score book into shreds during a recent pro soccer match between his Seattle Sounders and Portland in Major League Soccer. It was done in protest to one of his teammates getting a red card in that contest. He felt the card was unwarranted; putting his team at a great disadvantage.

Dempsey is the former Furman Paladin who harrased our Apps for four seasons before beginning a pro career that has taken him all over the world to play.

Dempsey tore the refs book in a US Open Cup match against arch rival Portland. Seattle finished the game 7 on 11 with three red cards and an injury after all three subs were already made.

Technically, it could have been considered assault on the ref and his ban could have been worse. It ended up being 3 MLS games (including game against Portland, a 4-1 loss) and 6 US Open Cup games.

While Dempsey is a Furple, a Sounder, and a former Spur (I hate all three), lets remember that he got smart at one point and and married an App!

Give some credit to Honduras. They had a great tactical strategy that exposed our weaknesses. It was the worst performance by the USMNT that I have seen in awhile. The passing was extremely poor. Fortunately, our boys are very good on set plays.