News: Breaking: DC and NY Swap Home Dates

No doubt. It's a crappy thing to have happened in the context of sports. But, at least you're not playing a team with an actual home field advantage like Seattle or RSL or something.

 

Wasn't spouting it as common sense. Just thought it was a better comparison that recent NFL actions. Nothing worth getting all worked up for.

 

Thing about that is, by shuffling the home dates, they bought themselves a few more days to perhaps plan for that contingency properly. I'd guess they'll know by the time the weekend game starts whether or not RBA will be ready, and have a backup plan ready to announce then.

 

I think everyone is overlooking something crucial here: Mehdi Ballouchy for San Jose is going to miss the playoffs with an ACL injury. Without him on San Jose's playoff roster, New York stood less likely to be the beneficiary of trading him mid-season.

The league absolutely had to intervene in whatever way it could to keep the curse of Ballouchy alive!

 

If they can't play at RBA by next Wednesday, I'd feel that MLS was somewhat vindicated. In other words, the stadium was in worse shape than they are letting on. I'm more worried about PATH. There won't be anyone at the stadium if there's no PATH service.

 

I edited out the common sense part because I realized that was another poster quoting you. Somehow you caught it before the edit.

 

If they couldn't do that with a week's advance of the hurricane, what difference would an extra week make?

 

I have a feeling it'll be ready in a day or two. The initial reports from RBA reported minimal storm impact. Power usually comes up pretty quickly for big structures even after the biggest storms ... certainly faster than remote residential areas.

It would be nice to have some inside information on the progress inside RBA. It's just seems convenient that the building was too damaged to be ready by Sunday or Monday ... but just undamaged enough that it'll be ready for Wednesday.

This just seems like consideration for the general state of the area outside the stadium (Harrison and North NJ in general). That's understandable with all the damage in the region, but they could of capped RBA attendance to minimize traffic or just play the game behind closed doors. If the field is fine and the building is sound with lights on you're good to go. But no they basically sacrificed competitive fairness for attendance considerations. A classic case of $ over soccer.

 

Well...point one is that they didn't necessarily have a week's notice that it would be as damaging as it would. But, having the extra week, that's a lot more time to not get bent over on a rent agreement, maybe PPL is available next week when it wasn't this week, more time for public transit to get up and running which would open up more options in the metro area.

A week is a long time.

 

Goff's reporting that NYRB have been told that RBA probably won't have full power again until Monday.

 

or 5.

 

I don't think anyone's seriously arguing that they should have stuck with Saturday at RBA.

I'd like to know why the league didn't seriously consider PPL Park, which is what the audio from Garber's conference call seems to indicate. But I'm years past seeing any point in hoping for the tiniest bit of transparency from MLS HQ.

 

Wasn't there a direct quote from Garber saying they tried for PPL but couldn't make it work, due to a scheduling conflict?

 

No. The quote was more like this: "we considered PPL Park or changing the date, but we couldn't make the latter work because of the tight schedule." Note the "latter". There was never an explanation re: PPL.

 

Yeah ... that could be lip service ... A quick glance at their website and there's no event at PPL for 2 weeks.

Unless "schedule conflict" is Garber talk for "we don't want a televized playoff game in an empty stadium"

 

My point was that every FO should have a contingency plan in the event that their regular stadium isn't available. If NY had no such plan before, my expectations for them making one in a few days' notice aren't very high. The fact that a hurricane was forming and scheduled to hit the East Coast should have expedited those plans (which they should have already had in the first place).

 

Which is perfectly reasonable. Hurricane Sandy screwed things up. Deal.

 

Not sure why they couldn't have moved it to Rentschler Field (AEG manages I believe) in Hartford - I think it comes down to MLS not wanting to give up a home gate for RBNY and the money from that.

 

That would be a lot of effort (and effort = $) to prepare for something that almost never happens. If I'm not mistaken this is the first MLS playoff game ever that can't be played in the location dictated by the playoff format due to an emergency situation. (In the Rose Bowl days LA had to move one home game to Fullerton due to a schedule conflict, and I think that's the only one that's been relocated at all.) Normally the contingency plan is to postpone the game and figure out a makeup date later--this has happened plenty of times for regular season games. It's only the schedule crunch of the playoffs that prevents that from being the solution here.

 

After reading pages and pages of DCU fans bitching, I was curious to see how many of these QF serieses have had to go to extra time since MLS adopted this format.

It's happened a whopping 3 times out of 20. The home team won two of those.

There should be more outrage directed at what a pathetic reward for regular season finish the extra time is then there should be about DC and NY swapping fixtures.

 

Y

Your stadium would be empty save for the hundreds of United fans who were planning to bus in anyway.

 

Why should DC deal? What about shared sacrifice? What's Red Bull sacrificing in this scenario

I'm still waiting for a reason why moving game to ppl or another regional venue was impossible.

 

It's not our fault that the New York* effs up every wet dream the league lays out for them.

*mod edit the sentiment I think is fine, please use proper team names in N&A when referring to teams. Thanks.

 

You're hearing from fanatical BigSoccer DCU diehards who are, in my opinion, overplaying this whole thing. I don't know that this sample represents DCU fans in general. I'd suggest that many -- if not most -- aren't thrilled but understand the situation, and are simply ready to move forward and play the games.

I'd just say this: Consider that DC United management demonstrated sportsmanship by quickly agreeing to swap venue dates once it became clear that there was no better solution. And Coach Olsen's response: "I'm ok with it. There are real issues in NY & NJ. People are suffering. This seemed to be the simplest solution."