Hans Backe bitched and whined his way into a postponement. For a guy from Scandinavia to complain about playing in the snow, it rings a little hollow. I do feel bad for the DCU fans who made the trip up there. I know if that were the Union, and I made the trip up there, I'd be tearing that place apart. I hope DCU wins 4-0 tomorrow. Also, aside from LA, I don't think any team pisses and moans more about every single call than Sharting KC. After every foul, there's 4 guys in the ref's ear. Talk about your paper champions...
DC agreed to move the matches to help the Dead Bulls, and then when DC says "we want to play" MLS tells them to screw off and wait till tomorrow. If DC loses tomorrow, I will truly feel for the fans.
I hate that team so much. I watched them crash out tonight and was quite pleased. Houston parked the bus for 90+ minutes but managed to get the job done. Sapong hilariously missed about 5 sitters. DC is getting screwed so hard by the league it's unreal.
Sharting completely collapsed. Houston was doing everything they possibly could to give that game to them, and they just couldn't finish. Their tears were sweet to taste. I can't wait until we get a crack at them again next year, and humiliate them again. Also, Houston is the NHL equivalent of an MLS playoff team: Back into the playoffs, then get hot, and go to the final. If DCU wins tonight, it'll be the two hottest teams in the East going up against one another, but I'm still picking Houston. Nobody pulls a rabbit out of their ass quite like the Dynamo.
How do they fit so many games into a June-July schedule? Houston's performance reminded me of our shellacking of KC last summer. Get two good central defenders and dare KC to keep crossing the ball in.
It was great watching the MLS' and Media's darlings crash out of the playoffs last night. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black.........SKC has to be the biggest bunch of whiners in the league, by far. Their fans told us and everyone else to stick it when they pulled their shenanigans in the Open Cup games. Now Houston gives SKC a taste of their own medicine (more tactically, under control and with far less moaning and groaning to the officials), and they cry foul? Wait till CCL play.....it'll be fun watching them crash out of that tourney as well.......
I'm aware of that, but growing up in that environment, it's not like the whole world ends once the first few flakes fall. I'm sure that growing up he played soccer all the time in the snow, and was just looking for a way for his team to not to have to play in it for one reason or another. With the urgency that the people clearing off the field showed, it was almost like it was deliberate so that the Red Bulls wouldn't have to play.
Yep, Houston is doing exactly what it did last year. I thought for sure that Peter Vermes's head would explode during that game. His wild gesticulating and antics towards the fourth official were a show in itself.
In Sweden and other cold-weather countries, the stadiums are built with under-field heating, so new snow doesn't accumulate. When was the last time you spent 45 minutes shoveling snow in a blizzard? My guess is, by the end, you weren't showing much "urgency" either. Don't get me wrong, I wanted to see them play, too. But some of the conspiracy theories are a little silly.
I was in the area yesterday and the conditions were dreadful. The snow would have been back by halftime.
We should give some props to DC United's organization in all of this. Not only did the entire team and one of the owners come over to thank their fans, but they also climbed the stairs to join them in the stands and personally thank the fans who were bussed up for the match. I think there were more DCU fans at RBA then RBNY fans last night (granted NY fans and residents have much more important things to deal with at the moment).
Here's my conspiracy theory: I watched the coverage from 8:10-9:00. At 8:40, I said to my son, "They're never going to play. They're just waiting until 8:58 to postpone the game so they will retain viewers for the SKC-Houston game." And, I was right.
I'm not talking about in stadium. I'm saying in general. It's not like life shuts down when there's snow. Do you mean to tell me that growing up once the snow fell on parks that soccer was stopped altogether, and that no one ever played in the snow? I'm not saying it's a conspiracy, but you're taking the term blizzard a little far. It was wind and snow, and, yes, I have shoveled heavy wet snow before, but that shouldn't have even happened anyway. A pickup truck with a plow could've done the job, and it wouldn't have wrecked the field. Columbus has done this on several occasions when they've needed to. It would've been the same conditions for both teams. It's not like New York were asked to play in church shoes. Don't give me this nonsense about integrity of the game. You had many fans who drove to the game, and then you were going to send them back home in the middle of this dangerous and deadly blizzard. I've seen many soccer games played in the snow. Is it pretty? No, but guys do play, and I've seen more injuries as a result of playing on artificial turf than I have from playing in the snow.
Again, I was in that area yesterday and blizzard would accurately describe the conditions. I really don't want to be on the side of evil when it comes to the PCNJ, but I honestly think playing that game would have been foolish and MLS should have taken steps to postpone the game a when it was first approached to do so on Tuesday.
While I think that MLS dropped the ball on this, I do see why they postponed the game. If the snow wasn't the wet heavy type they had yesterday and instead it was the fluffy snow it would have made the conditions more playable. They had an idea earlier in the week that they could just have moved the game to Thursday to begin with. This last minute change was really unfair to the DCU fans that traveled up to the game and made people travel to the game either to watch or work when it could have been avoided. I didn't see the DCU players and staff go up to their fans but I think that was great. I don't like DC, though only because they are a close rival, but I loathe NJPC so this gives me more reason to root for DC. I was glad to see KC get beat and really enjoyed the how. As several of you mentioned, they got a taste of their own medicine with the rough play from Houston. KC really is a whinny bunch and they are right up there with the Pink Cows and LAG in that regard (sad to see LAG put 3 on SJ last night). Edit - meant to ask, why doesn't the state of the art Red Bull Arena have a heated field like NFL stadiums? I know it is expensive and I doubt we have one but a heated field in NY(NJ) would have been a must for me if I were them. Snow in November in our region is not out of the question though it may be uncommon.
Have you ever seen a professional game played under conditions where you couldn't see the lines on the field? That seemed like the biggest problem to me. During the hour or so delay, RBA was getting about an inch of snow. That means that after ten minutes of play, the touchlines, the endlines, the penalty box, and the goal area would all be basically invisible. You could see it happening while they were cleaning; a few minutes after they'd shoveled, the field was white again.
Saw this over on the DCU boards. Looks like RBA had a field heating system installed in 2009. From RBNY media guide available on MLS PressBox: Seems that the Pink Cows weren't being truthful... REALLY pulling for DCU tonight.
Not sure about that, the Eagles have a heated field and while it doesn't remove all snow and ice it makes the playing field manageable. I know soccer relies on the ball on the field but I have seen soccer played in adverse conditions which is supposed to be one of the best things about soccer. The weather is not supposed to stop the game, outside of lightning in the area. We played Seattle in a monsoon, it isn't snow but it wasn't ideal playing conditions either. Heck the US nationals just played a WCQ on a field that was worse than Red Bull was last night.
We get to heckle them again with "17 years, no cups" & "Why does Red Bull come in Cans? Cause you have no cups." Very enjoyable.