Wasn't that the whole point of having the game at SLU because Marta was supposed to come? That way you can accommodate the larger crowd. If you look at the prediction thread few think it will make a difference and most pick L.A. to win. Myama and Duan are good and along with Aly Wagner and Boxx still make L.A. dangerous. Lori Chalupny was bolding predicting their first win on Sports Final on Channel 2 Friday night. She said she thinks they can beat the Sol for their first win.
Originally, I thought that's why they scheduled the game there, too, but apparently there was also a scheduling conflict at SIU. They have a track and field meet there this weekend. Although LA is missing Marta, we will probably be hurting just as bad losing Larsson, Francielle, and Aluko. And Daniela is still battling injuries, so we are really going to be shorthanded, even if she does play. It might hurt the attendance though. The good news is that we have another home game against LA later on.
You have to really search for WPS news so hopefully a lot of fans won't know and show up anyway. LOL!
I don't think it will affect attendance much. My guess is most fans (or more importantly, their parents) just getting into this really wouldn't know Marta from Martin Scorsese.
Yeah, I was thinking the same thing plus getting news on WPS is not on the evening sports or the radio. It's not even apparent on the WPS home page that she's not playing so you have to really look for it anyway and probably very few fans would choose not to come just because of that. Most of them are just fans of the Athletica.
Just curious - has the front office gotten any backlash from ticket-buyers over Marta's absence? The Sweden-Brazil friendly must have been scheduled some time ago.
Actually, I haven't noticed any. Ticket sales have been pretty good for the last couple of weeks or so from what I can tell and the article by Tom Timmerman of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch which mentions Marta's absence doesn't seem to have fazed people. I'm sure the people who know are disappointed, but I haven't really heard any disgruntled fans. Ask me against after Saturday's game.
I don't think anyone going to the games really cares about Marta being there. I think we will see consistent crowd coming to games to support our local team regardless of the opponent.