U.S. Women to open 2010 domestic schedule vs Mexico on March 28 in San Diego and March 31 in Sandy, Utah

The U.S. Women’s National Team will play its first two domestic matches of 2010 against Mexico on March 28 at Torero Stadium on the campus of the University of San Diego and March 31 at Rio Tinto Stadium in Sandy, Utah, the home of reigning Major League Soccer champion Real Salt Lake.

The match in San Diego will kick off at 2 p.m. PT and will be televised live on Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Sports en Español. The match in Utah will kick off at 7 p.m. MT and be televised live on ESPN2.

The U.S. players will be called up from WPS pre-season training camps for what will be the final internationals for the U.S. team before the pro league kicks off on the weekend of April 10 and 11. The USA will open its 2010 schedule at the Algarve Cup in Portugal in late February.

“The challenge at this point is trying to mesh both the WPS season and finding games for the national team so that we’re still getting good preparation as a team for World Cup qualifying,” said U.S. Women’s National Team Forward Abby Wambach. “I think it’s always a work in progress to find the best solutions, but at the end of the day, getting these games in against Mexico after the Algarve Cup and before the WPS season is really valuable for the continuing development our team and the women’s game. The more international games we can play, the better we will be.”

The Mexico matches will mark the 24th and 25th meetings between the neighbors, but first since the CONCACAF Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in April of 2008. During that tournament, the USA defeated Mexico 3-1 in front of a sell-out crowd of 22,280, during the group finale. The match featured a wild first half in which all four goals were scored.

Like the U.S., Mexico is preparing for CONCACAF qualifying for the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup. Qualifying is tentatively scheduled for the fall of this year, but the host country and dates have yet to be finalized.

The U.S. Women will be making their fourth appearance at Torero Stadium, one of the best small soccer venues in the country. The most recent match at Torero was the final match before the USA left for the Beijing Olympics, when Wambach suffered a broken leg in a 1-0 win against Brazil on July 16, 2008.

The U.S. team has never played at Rio Tinto, although this will be the second match for the American women in Utah following a 5-0 victory against Ireland at Rice-Eccles Stadium in 2003.

The match in San Diego will mark the 30th appearance in California for the U.S. women, by far the most of any state, even though the U.S. team did not play a match in California for the first 11 years of the program before facing the Netherlands at Titan Stadium in Fullerton, Calif., in 1996. Even more remarkable is that the U.S. women have never lost in California, going 26-0-3.