Good question. I mean, I wouldn't hold a qualifier against Mexico in Dallas or anything but it does seem strange that the city continues to be overlooked. Probably Jerry Jones' fault. /former Dallasite
They haven't gotten many although they have had three in the past eight years (all friendlies). Mexico at the Cotton Bowl in '04 (45,048) Guatemala at Pizza Hut Park in '06 (14,453) Guatemala at Pizza Hut Park in '07 (10,932) Don't know if the attendance of the last one hurt their chances or not. I was at the Mexico friendly. That last minute goal by Eddie Pope was a classic! Thanks to Andy Mead for this shot of the celebrations after the goal:
for some reason, I feel like they don't need to go to Dallas. They can go to Houston, San Antonio or Austin. Travel your state. Speaking of which, will the US ever come to Tucson. We recently sold out an MLS pre-season game of 11k, so where is are game.
They don't need to go a massive market like Dallas but do need to go to Tucson? Not sure you'll find loads of agreement there.
the bay area and AZ easily compare. Are last games were in 2007, and we have hosted Mexico since.. PHX during the 2009 GC, and the Bay Area last Saturday.
The Bay Area has hosted Mexico for the last few years (Ecuador, Sweden, recently Paraguay). Last time the US came to the Bay Area, there were about 20,000-21,000 in the stands for a friendly against China.
Yeah and the entire crowd was green. So what makes you think the US can pull good numbers against a team that ISN'T Mexico? I love how you completely disregard that point. It doesn't help your case when you play a home game and the other team has home field advantage.
A US / Mexico game would be a sellout anywhere in the US, more so now than before. Give the Bay Area any meaningful game and we may fill the place. About 21K to catch a China friendly, and before that about 38K to watch Japan.
Gulati and the fed have shown a preference especially for the European players and because of this they don't want them to cross an additional three time zones. If you look at the bulk of the friendlies the country outside the Eastern Time Zone they're usually the B team squads. Of course I can't complain about this beig from the East Coast.
because we have had memphis size crowds for MLS pre-season games. Tucson hosted the Pink Bulls vs. Sporting KC, and it sold out at 11k. PHX then hosted the Red Bulls verses Atlas at University of PHX Stadium, and it had a crowd of 22k. This was for PRESEASON games. Thats why I feel we should host US Soccer games. Plus, there are two AO chapters in AZ.
si. but this also was with no advertising for both matched. The only advertising we saw for both cities were a couple of spanish radio commercials, and some news reports on the event. Other than that, nobody really knew about it. The hotel I worked at right next to Hi Corbett didn't know why all the rooms were sold for the weekend, until I told them about the event.
I see, those games with Henry and Marquez were marketed to the large Latino community to catch ex-Barca standouts live. The Atlas game also featured a prominent Mexican team with whom Marquez started his career before heading to Europe. Probably not a clear indication of potential US support, but that doesn't mean Arizona doesn't deserve a game.
True. Of course, the questions of Phoenix and Tucson are very different and he inserted into this thread about Dallas his opinion that Tucson was more deserving of a US game than Dallas because 11k showed up for an MLS pre-season game.
And Omar Bravo played in the SKC game.... Thats not to say AZ doesn't deserve a game, but it needs to be against a wisely chosen opponent.
No offense to Tuscon, but it's not that large and, crucially, doesn't have many (any except Phoenix, around 120 miles away) other population centers nearby. City population is about a half a million and metro population is about a million (52nd largest metro area in the nation, says Wikipedia). I wouldn't mind if they got a game and I'd try to go (I've been there a few times and it's pretty country), but the metro areas around that size that have hosted US games of late are for reasons that don't exist in Tucson (Cary(Raleigh) got a game after hosting the US camp; Salt Lake has an MLS team; Hartford is centrally located to NY and Boston and easy to get to from Philly, DC, Baltimore, etc.). I don't see any city lower than Tucson on this list that has gotten a game in the last decade plus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_metropolitan_areas Phoenix's metro area is 4.3 million, compared to 1 million for Tucson. Atlanta, Detroit, Minneapolis/St. Paul, St. Louis, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh are all much larger cities (more than double the metro area) that have more to shout about than Tucson.