(TV: Wednesday, ESPN2 & Univision 9 pm ET, kickoff 9:25 pm ET.)

By Ridge Mahoney
Senior Editor, Soccer America
in Glendale, Ariz.

There's turmoil in the Mexican camp. The American players are forecasting a World Cup atmosphere. The sellout crowd of 62,000 will be mostly attired in green.

It's USA-Mexico, what else?

''This game will feel like a qualifier or a World Cup game,'' said Landon Donovan, who has played the most games against Mexico, seven, of the 20 players picked by Coach Bob Bradley for the match at University of Phoenix Stadium, the home of the NFL Cardinals. ''It always does. Anytime you have a big crowd to play in front of, it brings more out of you. That's just natural.''

It's natural for the Americans to be cautious yet confident. They own Mexico on U.S. soil. In the last seven meetings in the United States, the USA is 6-0-1 and has outscored its rival, 11-0.

Yet Mexico has a decided edge in fitness, even though the national team has not played since the World Cup. Mexican league play began in late January, and players on the Interliga teams have been in training since late December. Most of the Americans have played just one competitive match, the 3-1 win against Denmark Jan. 20, in the last three months, if not longer.

''I don't think the difference will be all that great,'' says Bradley of game-fitness. ''Our team has been working very hard and as I've said before, out team's mentality has been very good.''

And mentality is where the game could be lost for Mexico. For his debut in the job he spent most of the current millennium campaigning for, Coach Hugo Sanchez has compared another defeat to the USA as catastrophe.

Mexico's stars are here, and at least a few have re-sparked friction with Cuauhtemoc Blanco, recalled to the team by Sanchez amid much controversy. Midfielder Pavel Pardo, who clashed with Blanco when the two were teammates at Club America, refused to speak about Blanco at a team press conference Monday.

The toughness of players like Pardo, who left the Mexican league last summer to play in Germany with Stuttgart, may also help the Mexicans counteract the confidence and dominance of their opponents.

''We've been able to get more Mexican players in Europe, and we have to be proud of that representation,'' said Pardo, one of five employed overseas selected by Sanchez.

''Now we have to demonstrate it on the field. Just because we play in Europe doesn't mean we have a better national team.''

Of the four European-based players called in by Bradley, only Bobby Convey is short of match fitness, but such is the politics of summoning players for friendlies, the pressure on Bradley to start Convey, Tim Howard, Carlos Bocanegra and Clint Dempsey will be severe. His English Premier League players are fit but might wilt in temperatures at least 30 degrees hotter than what they've been accustomed to, and the domestic players can't be nearly as sharp as their opponents.

There are no easy answers for Bradley, yet he does have enough experienced players in Donovan, Bocanegra, Convey and Pablo Mastroeni, who have all played at least twice against Mexico. Howard shut out Mexico in the 0-0 tie played in Houston four years ago, and Mastroeni has played in the last five matches between the countries.

''The attitude has been right the past six weeks,'' says Mastroeni, who lived in Arizona after his family moved from Argentina when he was 4. ''We're anxious to put all our good work to use.''