May 19, 2002 – U.S. 0:2 Netherlands, CMGI (Gillette) initial international (Att.: 36,778)

The U.S. faltered in its 2002 World Cup sendoff game in a stadium that had opened eight days earlier, with scaled-down seating. Roy Makaay (45^th minute) and Andy van der Meyde (76^th) scored and Ronald Waterreus made stops on Eddie Pope, Landon Donovan, John O’Brien, Cobi Jones and Claudio Reyna. Before this match, the U.S. had a 7W-0L-3D record in Foxborough, all the games played at Foxboro Stadium.

U.S. coach Bruce Arena was not discouraged: “I thought it was a good game. I’m certainly not disappointed in the performance.” And Dutch coach Dick Advocaat said: “It is always good to win. Maybe it is good for the Americans that they lost, too.”

The Dutch had failed to qualify for the World Cup for the first time since 1986. The U.S. went on to reach the quarterfinals in the Japan/Korea World Cup.

TODAY IN NEW ENGLAND SOCCER HISTORY