Exciting news for Arizona soccer fans! Ticket Information: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/1900477CC3483D53
U.S. Men To Face Venezuela on Jan. 21 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Arizona Presale Starts Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. MT As a special benefit to our fans, we are pleased to offer you a special ticket presale ahead of the general public for the U.S. Men's National Team match against Venezuela on Saturday, Jan. 21 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Ariz. Kickoff is set for 7 p.m. MT. Your internet-only presale starts Wednesday, Dec. 7 at 10 a.m. MT and ends Thursday, Dec. 8 at 2 a.m. MT. Use the code J2LOCAL to purchase tickets in general fan sections or V4LOCAL in Venezuela fan sections on the ticketmaster.com order page. VISA is the preferred payment card of U.S. Soccer.
Very exciting, even though it will only be the MLS-ers and the Scandanavian contingent. I was at the USA/Sweden women's game and the good crowd there had to have led to this game being scheduled. Tell everyone you know in the area to go and drag everyone in the family to this one. It'll be fun. Saturday night. Tailgating is a must.
Anyone know how ticket sales are going for this? I'm hoping it outsells Red Bulls vs. Atlas, the attendance for that game was pretty damn good and made a good claim for soccer succeeding in the valley.
Steve Goff reported 12k last week. They announced 23,644 for Red Bulls/Atlas. Wouldn't expect us to get there. A January B-team friendly against a non-sexy opponent would be unlikely to get 24k anywhere.
Previous January friendlies (all in Carson unless noted): 1/22/2011 - Chile (18,580) 1/23/2010 - Honduras (18,626) 1/24/2009 - Sweden (9,918) 1/19/2008 - Sweden (14,878) 1/20/2007 - Denmark (10,048) 1/29/2006 - Norway (16,366) 1/22/2006 - Canada (6,077 at San Diego) 1/18/2004 - Denmark (10,461) 1/19/2003 - Canada (6,549 at Ft. Lauderdale)
I guess 12k is good relative to those other numbers. Just hoping for something better than that especially on a Saturday.
The 2006 game in San Diego was at Torero which holds about 7k. I believe it was also Freddy Adu's debut with the MNT.
Hell it is better than watching an away game on closed circuit tv vs Honduras, in a Honduran bar, in hood, in Phoenix, and driving 2hrs each way for the privilege. Ah, on second thought I take that back. We had a fricken blast at that one. Even when Honduras scored and they played some sort of "It's a small world" song in Spanish.
I've done the CC thing twice. Back during the 2002 Gold Cup for the Costa Rica game and for the last WCQ in Honduras. All I have to say is that all of my travels have shown that Honduran fans are the classiest fans I've ever encountered. Win or lose, they've always been great.
Hey over 22K in attendance not too shabby. Feeling pretty good after watching the MLS kids out there. I saw a solid effort for the full duration from every player and there were simply unlucky to not get a few more goals in there. USMNT looked like the generals out there. Agudelo was on a crutch, not sure what happened.
That was a good crowd. Too good, in fact, because Glendale was unprepared for it and couldn't handle having that and a hockey game going on in the same area (even though the hockey game started an hour earlier). The parking situation was ludicrous.
We just talked the hockey parking lot guys into letting us park there and then walked to the yardhouse and from there the game. We had no problem.
I got there just in time for the opening kick off. I guess most people didn't choose to get there early for some tale gating. I would have been there earlier but my friend didn't get off from work till 6. I do think that whether it be for a match like this or if we ever really did think about getting a MLS club that people not regulars at football matches should realize that people will stand and sing the full 90 when they are in the ultras( Sam's Army in this case) sections. There were a bunch of crabby people thinking it was against the law and moaning they couldn't sit and watch the match. I guess they thought they were at a tennis event. For them, they could easily have headed to those totally empty sections towards the other goal area if they wanted a clear view.
Our section was standing and sitting in unison like it was a catholic mass, it worked out well. In the second half a few rows back a guy was really drunk and was explaining to Shea (at about 70 decibels) where he should be on the pitch and where wanted the distribution to land.
What an impressive crowd for AZ and for the level of match, I'm hoping the MLS will finally come around to letting them play in a non-soccer stadium with the entire upper levels bannered off or something. Yes, I know it will never happen.