Lets see how a thread for game discussion goes, outside of the general news thread. Franchise debuts for Brooklyn and Jacksonville in the Championship. Fort Wayne, Sarasota, and Boise make their debuts in League One. The wannabe Cosmos and Corpus Christi make their debut on March 14. Here's the schedules for week 1 in the Championship and League One:
The whistle goes in Lexington for the Commonwealth Cup and the players for both teams stand still with their arms behind their backs for a full minute before kicking off. Looks like a fairly large crowd.
Aaron Molloy with a scorcher from about 25-30 yards out to give Lexington the 1-0 lead in the 17th minute.
10 minutes remaining. Louisville tied it up 1-1 early in the second half. The big news is Lexington set an attendance record, getting a crowd of 8,277 in their 7,500 capacity stadium.
Lousiville goes up 2-1 in the 85th minute. Lexington ties it 2-2 in the 86th minute but it's called back for a handball in the buildup.
Charleston with a 2-1 win over Pittsburgh in front of 5,012. Naples beats debuting Fort Wayne 2-0 in front of 4,072. Westchester loses a 2-3 thriller at home to Knoxville in front of 1,722. Jacksonville loses their men's team debut 0-3 at home to Hartford in front of 10,357. Birmingham and Tampa are just getting started after a weather delay in Alabama. It's the debut as Jay Heaps as the head coach for the Legion. Sarasota and Boise are underway after a 90+ minute weather delay in Florida. Currently 0 goals scored by all the debuting teams.
*Tampa Bay. Every single person who insists on this needs to stop. For the kajillionth time: over 90% of the population of the Bay Area does NOT live in the city of Tampa. Our teams - except for the class A Tarpons - all represent the entire multi-county Tampa Bay Area, and always have.
Birmingham loses 0-1 to Tampa Bay in front of 4,787. El Paso draws 2-2 against Colorado Springs in front of 6,079. Monterey Bay loses 0-1 to Oakland in front of 4,240. Orange County and Las Vegas draw 1-1 in front of 3,475. Sacramento wins 2-0 over Tulsa in front of 11,569. Sarasota loses 0-1 to Boise in front of 2,791. Alta and Richmond draw 1-1 in front of 4,508. Boise is the only debuting team at either level to score a goal this weekend. Brooklyn debuts against Indy to round out the weekend today.
They finally reported a very convenient round number of 4500 for Brooklyn's first home game. The week 2 schedules: Birmingham and Hartford didn't bother scoring in their random Wednesday morning game and there hasn't been any attendance report yet.
Cosmos vs Portland looks as minor league as it can get, with the announcers sounding like they're inside a fishbowl. Loudoun vs Pittsburgh is 1-1 less than 30 minutes in with both team wearing clean jerseys that have legible numbers on them and the entire production quality is several levels better.
Tuned in for the final ten minutes of the Cosmos match, absolutely no problem with either the audio or video quality.
3 more championship matches kicking off but there's no audio on the Rhode Island and Detroit streams. Not sure if it's the team or ESPN+ at fault, but when in doubt blame the hacks at ESPN.
Loudoun drops the 2-3 decision to Pittsburgh in a fun little match. Not sure what the attendance was, but it feels like they're establishing a little more solid footing every year after DC sold. Detroit up 2-0 over Brooklyn at halftime. Louisville up 3-1 over Miami at halftime. Rhode Island 0-0 with Jacksonville at halftime. Of course I chose to watch the one that went scoreless.
1,696 attendance in Loudoun today. Detroit beat Brooklyn 3-0 with a crowd of 5,559. Lou City stomped Miami 4-1. Solid crowd of 9,009. Rhode Island and Sporting Jax tie 1-1. 6,758 in Pawtucket. Colorado Springs wins 3-2 over Las Vegas with all 5 goals coming in the final 30 minutes. No attendance listed yet. The wayward intellectual property team lost 1-3 at home to the Portland Where's Waldos. 4,099 reported for attendance.
6,039 in Colorado Springs. Lexington and Sacramento drew 0-0 in front of 5,585. Tulsa and San Antonio 0-0 with a crowd of 5,717. Monterey Bay lost 0-3 against El Paso. 2,950 in attendance. Oakland 2-1 over New Mexico. Crowd of 14,419 and an E-40 concert. Phoenix draws 1-1 against Orange County. 6,026 attendance. Greenville 1-2 Chattanooga. 1,465 attendance. Knoxville 1-2 Madison. 4,568 saw that. Naples drew 2-2 against debuting Corpus Christi in front of 3,665. Westchester 1-1 against Charlotte with a crowd of 1,120. Sarasota 2-2 against Fort Wayne in front of 1,806.
Spokane gets 1,669 people to show up with snow plowed to the sides of the field and gets the 1-0 win over Omaha. Only USL1 home side to win this week.
USL professional clubs are 6-2 so far tonight in the Open Cup. The only on field loss was Portland losing to USL2 team Vermont. Tormenta's loss was a forfeit since they don't have a team.
Night two saw the USL professional side go 13-2, with the losses being Greenville and Alta. Only losses so far have been USL1 clubs.
4-2 on night three with the two losses being Madison and Chattanooga, two more USL1 clubs. Pittsburgh vs Steel City delayed until 3/25.