The Timbers are the main tenant of the stadium, and I think the only other games that get played there are about 5 or 6 college football games per year, so it isn't heavily used. This is a question many have asked, and I have yet to hear a good explanation, though I suspect the club would probably prefer to have a consistent, quality playing surface all season than one that gets torn up during the (long) rainy season.
Don't make me post ancient Native American cave paintings reciting Goose Hallow's history of natural flooding.
There are many other games there: NWSL Thorns games, Timbers Reserve games, a some of the Timbers U23s games, and unless things have changed without my knowledge, a handful of high school football games as well. I could recite a whole bunch of the other reasons, but there's an entire thread dedicated to this discussion on the Timbers board, so go check it out there, because I'd just be repeating that. If it makes you feel any better, Merritt Paulson has stated a preference for having grass at the stadium in the future, but it isn't possible right now. At least they are spending the money to ensure that the artificial turf there is always of an extremely high quality.
Isn't Jeld-Wen basically built right on top of a ****ing river? That seems a pretty good reason to not have grass...
An interesting choice of opponent. While the quality is indisputable, not one with the highest profile to the general public. But between Ribery, the USA's German-flavored World Cup, there could be some good story lines that emerge. I dunno, I kinda like River of Grass FC as a name for the Miami team.
now we need to know how he made that money. was it in any way connected with the operations of fcb? kick-backs on player transfers? off-the-books contracts? was any of that money paid to him by the club itself? will platini do a thorough investigation of the operations of fcb, in the context of ffp? but i have a feeling that in typical german fashion, hoeness will be treated as a black sheep and everyone else will carry on. (remember the research guy who faked the reliability data of german autos to make them look more reliable than competitors? think he did it all on his own?) and don't hold your breath for uefa to do anything either. they're too busy going after little bulgarian clubs. ps -- at this point i wish mls had a different all-star opponent.
I have decided that I really enjoy All-Star week. OK, the game itself is nearly always meh. But my twitter feed has been hilarious today, and all the side topics of conversation have been fun to follow. Dom Dwyer's "Best Friend Day" with his supposed rival Nick Rimando; the vine olympics between Maurice Edu and Bobby Boswell; the Special Olympics game; the Dwyer-and-DeAndre Yedlin mistaken identity; pro/rel ("never"); FIFA calendar (oh, Sepp); Ching vs Johnson; foot golf; Julian Green; Jimmy Conrad as a rickshaw driver... Short of the World Cup and actual, you know, games… this has been a blast to follow. It reminds me of some of the reasons why I am such a fan of this league. The players participating are obviously having a blast. Here are Dwyer, Edu, and Sean Franklin crashing a Rimando signing event. Me, @MauriceEdu and @SFranklin5 are so excited to be at the @NickRimando signing! 😬 #BestFriendDay pic.twitter.com/I20DxBd7x6— Dom Dwyer (@Ddwyer14) August 6, 2014
Screw that. Let's talk about the shit that really matters. That was by far the absolute best Matador episode since the last one! Riot Stadium is Stubhub with a computer generated crowd. Chivas USA should get all over that technology. Much better than tarps. Since when do they show topless soccer groupies on TV? I don't watch much TV other than soccer, so I really wouldn't know. I guess there was that one Columbus Crew chick that flashed a while back. In other news Tony Bravo's a fcuking thug. That was one hell of a deserved red card. The DISCO's gonna be all over that. Three game suspension, I'd think.
Not a timely response, but Nick Firchau really wrote a great article on the subject. http://www.mlssoccer.com/all-star/2...ng-truth-creek-under-portlands-soccer-stadium
Are you kidding? Chivas doesn't make enough money to even do a CGI tarp, let alone have all the detail of a CGI crowd!
As a fan of one of the teams with NO All-Stars... A big thank you to all the fans out there who gave my team some added rest this week.
I have been firmly on the All-Star Debbie Downer bandwagon for more than a few years now, but I'm coming around. Living in Portland, I can totally see the value in the event like I hadn't before. MLS is getting about 10x the press and promotion it normally gets this week around here. Fairly certain every single human in the Portland metro area knows about the MLS all-star game. Very good promotion for the league. I don't know if its been like this in prior years in prior cities, of course, but, for this year at least, I think it is safe to say the league is getting a significant mind-share bump, at least around here. Now, if only the All-Stars can avoid utter and total embarassment on the field tonight...
Should have done it like the year it was in Columbus and MLS scheduled Fulham (who were stronger then but still midtable). Game got lots of pub here (and especially after Edson Buddle got arrested for DUI). Fulham got their preseason exhibition before a decent sized crowd, MLS won the game, Owners got their meetings in, a good time was had by all. I sort of suspect that bringing in Bayern is too much and hope for mercy.
I'm really looking forward to this game because we'll get to see some of the best players in the world playing against some team from Germany.
I absolutely agree with this. When we had it here in NY, it was not very visible, but I was in Houston back in 2010 and it was a pretty big deal in town. I think the league marginally increases its presence in each city where this game is held