Guerrieri, Aggieland welcomes international soccer to Kyle Field

The Kyle Field gridiron has been replaced by a soccer pitch as Mexico and Brazil will play an international friendly on Saturday evening in Aggieland. During Thursday's edition of TexAgs Radio, Texas A&M head soccer coach G Guerrieri spoke about his excitement for the match.

Key notes from G Guerrieri interview

• The spring went well. We returned almost our entire team from last year. We made a solid run, but we lost late in the SEC semifinals, but we made another run in the NCAA Tournament – our 28th in the last 29 years. We lost to the eventual national champions. We lost 1-0 in Tallahassee, and they smacked Texas in the next round, 5-0. Florida State won the national championship match, 5-0. Nobody played them as tight as we did.
   
• We return our entire defense. We returned all of our best midfielders. We return our leading scorer. We went into the transfer portal wanting to have some more pop in our attack. We were only out-shot by two opponents, and one of them was Florida State. We weren’t finishing our chances, so we wanted to get a proven goal scorer. We went after strikers. We signed five to get some more consistency and depth in our attack. Some of those players will be on campus now. We just signed Allison Lowrey from Rutgers. She has already played in the final four. We have players with different backgrounds, but they’re all proven. We’re hoping they give more spice to a proven lineup.
   
• We’re stoked about what the fall could be for the Aggies.
   
• When people come in from the portal, they’re blown away by the town. They’re blown away by how livable and friendly this place is. Everything is laid out well. When people see the surface of Ellis Field, they see that they can play here. When they look at our history and success, people want to be part of it. They see that the Aggie Ring means something. Our leading scorer last year, Jazmine Wilkinson, is out of the transfer portal, and we’ve brought in players who can step right in and do things. We’ve looked at the portal as adding something special, not adding more people.
   
• We’ve looked at the portal as a way to find something special. What’s different for us vs. teams around the country is that players our leaving their schools, but we graduate all of our players. We retain all of our players. Players come to Texas A&M and like it here. To brag about our team, we had a 3.6 GPA and 11 players with a 4.0. It’s a phenomenal group. Only two of our players went ahead and graduated and moved on. They both turned pro. Jordyn Gunnarson graduated and is now working on her PhD.
   
• Preseason starts earlier this year. Report date for players is July 28, which is earlier than ever before. Our first exhibition is Aug. 3, and our big Fish Camp game is Aug. 24. It’s right around the corner.
   
• We want more international games here. We had put ourselves in the running for being a host site for training camps for the World Cup because we felt like the central location for the 2026 World Cup would be helpful. We have an airport six minutes from campus and great amenities in College Station. We thought it would be an ideal base for teams to be. It didn’t work out because of FIFA and a lot of their contracts. They wanted to take over the entire university, and that didn’t work with us. The idea of wanting to have friendlies and things is something I’ve been talking about with the school for a number of years, so I’m excited that it’s finally coming to pass.
   
• Think back to the COVID-19 year and the hit that our community took when we didn’t have full houses. Now, we’re going to have at least 70,000 people who usually wouldn’t be here on a Saturday night in June coming to Bryan-College Station from out of town. It’s at least as many people as we would have had for non-conference football games, so it’s essentially another home game. It’s another big event that we’re adding to the calendar for our local businesses.
   
• It’s another way to spread the news about what a cool play Bryan-College Station is. The people who are coming are people who have probably not been here before. People might be speaking Spanish or Portuguese. It will be a cultural change, but it’s one more thing that will allow us to take the veil off of what Aggieland is and give us another chance to put on a smiling face.
   
• Mexico is the home team. I haven’t seen the lineups, and they probably won’t show those or the rosters until right before. The Mexican National Team is going to be a very young team. Both of these teams are preparing for Copa América, which is like a mini World Cup for the western hemisphere. The United States, Canada and Mexico usually don’t participate in the tournament. It’s usually the South American countries, but the event is being hosted in the United States. The United States and Mexico are set up on the other side of the bracket, opposite of Brazil and Argentina. I know the United States will be keeping an eye on Brazil. Mexico is a team we’re always keeping an eye on. Both Mexico and Brazil are using this game as a tune-up game.
   
• A lot of the Mexican team is their domestic talent from their domestic league. You’ll see a lot of their young players, and you’ll see a lot of exciting players.
   
• With the Brazilian team, it’s a lot of who’s who. A lot of those players – like Vinicius Junior, who plays with Real Madrid and just won the Champions League final in London – could be getting some time off. They may be on the sideline or not even here yet. The Brazilians are always everyone’s favorite to win the World Cup, even though their arch-rivals, the Argentinians, are the defending champions. You’ll see that the Brazilians are going to be the favorites, and they should win this game on Saturday. They will be loaded from front to back. Alisson, who plays for Liverpool, should be in goal, and then you’ll see some remarkable players in the lineup.
   
• Kyle Field, they have gotten about 70 yards of width out of it. They added grass to what is usually the track. I was on the pitch the other day, and it looks fantastic. Aggies can grow grass. It looks spectacular.
   
• There are still tickets available. It’s a 7:30 p.m. CT kickoff. That’s the magic time when it becomes comfortable outside. It’s going to be a great night at Kyle Field, and it’s something that is definitely different. These two teams are not going to disappoint.