Mullan's tackle was an unfortunate, careless accident. Seattle's pitch was a premeditated danger to every single person on the field. I hope you feel you have some sense of "payback", Seattle. Your field put your own players at risk too, so I wouldn't gloat too much. You should be ashamed.
If the Rapids FO has any balls, they will file a formal complaint to the league about the condition of that pitch in Seattle. This is outrageous.
Only reason why Seattle brought in grass was for Wednesdays friendly after that they'll remove it and donated it. Seattle normally plays on field turf although its possible they may put in a permanent grass pitch in the future. Best wishes for a full recovery for Casey.
F**k. I was hoping it was only a strain considering he walked off the field, but it is completely inexcusable that one of the better players in this league is out for pretty much a full season because of that POS temporary field installation. After the injuries to Casey and Toure and the cancellation of the VAN-RSL match, MLS had better ban the grass overlays.. If your team doesn't have a grass field, sucks to be you on getting the big friendlies, IMHO.
More than any other player, successful Rapids outcomes in the last few years have closely correlated with Casey being on the field. This is a huge blow. Now we'll get to find out what some others (Folan for instance) are made of.
Not to mention that someone from ManC twisted his ankle on Vancouver's pitch last night. I don't know how serious it is, but this cannot happen again.
This is true, but this one was clearly the fault of the temporary overlay. Regardless of it being possible to happen on a grass field, temporary overlays are dangerous to players and it is completely inexcusable that they would be used in a competitive match. Hell, ManCity just lost their starting striker for an uncertain amount of time because of this crap.
Your club should have taken a queue from Vancouver and canceled the match. That plastic pitch you normally play on is garbage to start with, then on top of the vinyl and rubber padding you lay down sod thats way too soft and grass thats way to long. Its like playing in a giant sponge that cleaves and gives way under your feet. I almost hope a Man U player gets injured because of that pitch so that Sounders FC gets all of the negative backlash they deserve for having such a woefully poor surface.
On the plus side, Toure's injury is apparently a lot more minor than it appeared live: http://www.mlssoccer.com/wfc/news/a...toure-not-seriously-injured-man-citys-2-1-win
The odd thing is, aren't the European teams requesting the stuff? I hope they've learned that while turf isn't optimal, laying sod down like that is worse.
I think this is exactly Quinn's point. Seattle decided it was worth the injury risk to every player on the field to make a little dough at the box office. It's really just a shame that it had to be *our* player . . .
Indeed. Hell if Man-u didn't mind playing on field turf Seattle wouldn't have brought it in. All of seattle's friendlies last year were done on field turf.
Unfornately i was fearing that may happen. Look i'm against temp grass. But until european teams don't mind playing on a fieldturf field or all MLS teams put in a permanent grass pitch, we may continue to see temp grass surfaces.
And seattle is going to replace the field. Problems its not going to be a grass pitch not with the university of Washington Huskies moving in for a year. The real issue is figuring out how to install a permanent grass pitch when the only available free time is between NFL and MLS seasons and ideally that's only 3 month window.
Then these cash grab friendlies need to be scheduled around better, or the team with the bad surface should forfeit the league game because they cannot provide an adequate surface.
I think the real solution is for the MLS to ban fake grass altogether and for you guys to build your own stadium. I mean, c'mon, you guys have the most season ticket holders and highest profit margin in the entire league. Where's the stadium to go along with that?
Sure. They said they were gonna make it grass when Qwest first opened...before the Sounders existed or when the Huskies planned to make their move, but they changed it at the last minute. They want it temporary because it easy and cheap. They'll just come up with new excuse to keep it that way when the college team moves out.
Unfortunately for Seattle a SSS would have to be totally privately funded. After being on the hook for the Kingdome until it was torn down without being completely paid off, CenturyLink, Safeco, and KeyArena the voters passed legislation that prevents any county or city money in King County to go to stadiums.
Its true. Its extremely hard to build a stadium in the state of Washington with out public funding. Umm the legislation only applies for City of Seattle not King County as a whole. I don't remember ever seeing it on the ballot for those outside of seattle. It exists cause they don't want to pay public tax money if there is no way the stadium is going to be able to pay it off. But as long as the stadium is able to pay off that amount i think its okay. I believe it the voters have to approve it as well. However since the whole budget problem going on in a state any public tax payers money is out of the picture.