When I heard about Dallas playing on fieldturf for the next season or so I thought I remebered Chicago players complaining about how bad it is. I think it was in Sports Illustrated that they said in the sweltering summer heat the turf gets so hot that by the end of the game the spikes on their shoes were melting. Dallas gets hotter than hell. This could bring an unfortunate new meaning to the Brimstone Cup. Is anyone in Dallas talking about the summer heat and the field?
Well, the Fire don't play on FieldTurf, they play on something called SafePlay Plus, which is a couple notches below FieldTurf in quality. In fact, Naperville is the only field above high school level to use the stuff. Having said that however, it does still get hotter than a natural grass field. And it'll probably be pretty uncomfortable out there for a day game in Dallas in the summer. But it won't be so bad you can't play on it, & most games are at night anyway. From what I've heard, these next-generation turfs are hotter than natural grass, but not nearly as hot as the early-generation artificial turfs. And they used to have those in places like Houston, New Orleans, even Miami. I guess what I'm saying is, while it may get hot, it won't be prohibitively hot.
Dallas plays only one afternoon game and that's in April. The fire plays 3 afternoon games at home, one in late june ,one in july and one in early august the hottest part of the season. Then we play a night game in april when it is the coldest. Thanks MLS.The players do not like safe play although it is better than the old artificial turf. On hot days the players feet feel like the're burning.
The surface temp for one of the summer day games at Cardinal Stadium last season was 157 degrees. That is not a typo.
I guess it'll prevent diving. The prospect of second degree burns is probably not worth it just to draw a yellow card.