Ah, the memories of shouting insults at keepers and nearly hitting Big ugly fat Tony where it hurts the most.
I read this too. WTF? The Arsenal higher ups have come out saying this wont happen at their new stadium.
Its insanity. Don't ask FIFA and UEFA execs. Those boneheads care ONLY about maximizing revenue streams. That is all. Ask the fans and the players - they will tell you how the game SHOULD be played. Fake turf may be cheaper - but it warps the game and players hate it. Change is all fine and good - but some things are meant to stay the same. Grass is one of them
The Hamilton Accies, a Scottish D1 team, they have turf. While it looks decent, the ball doesn't take clean bounces. However, it looks like it would be better than the turn at Dragon Stadium, but that isn't saying much.
One of the big problems with FieldTurf is that it gets incredibly hot in this part of the country in the summertime, with the sun beating down on it and with 100-degree afternoons. Obviously, that wouldn't be as big of a problem in Scotland (or indoors), but there's still that whole "it still doesn't play like grass" thing to deal with. Incidentally, guess which MLS team is going to be playing on a FieldTurf field with permanent football lines next year? (Relax, it's not us. It's an expansion team.)
I've heard that field turf can be designed differently based on intended usage. What I mean is, since it is more like individual blades of "grass" rather then a continous surface like astro turf, they can change the pile height to create different kinds of surfaces. The issue we have here in the states is that they prefer a shorter pile for gridiron, and most soccer teams are using fields that are primarily used for pointyball. While in Europe they can choose to use a higher pile which would diminish the high bounces and ridiculously fast movement on the ground. Is this true or did I make it up?
I believe that is true. But a problem is that after continued use, the blades of plastic grass get compressed and a lot less grass-like. Look at Giants Stadium. When they first started playing on the FieldTurf there last spring, it was very grass-like. Now, it's much less so. Still an improvement over Astroturf, but still not as good as grass.
Gotcha....but still Giants was designed for point ball and not soccer. They don't really care how the ball travels on the ground or how high it bounces, so the groundscrew doesn't pay attention to that. In Europe they will be scrutinizing how the field responds to usage and maintaining it differently.
Hey, we now have the technology to make the 'Star Trek Replicators' a reality. 'Twouldn't be surprised in the least if we produced turf effectively better than real grass.
I wonder if they ever consider if climate or weather can have an effect on the playing conditions. Other parts of Europe such as England, Holland and Germany have rainy or snowy seasons than others (i.e. Spain, Italy, Greece) in which the ball plays differently on field turf in certain weather conditions. Also factor the ground conditions of each country such as below sea level Holland and a high altitude places like Bolivia and Peru. Plus if countires like the ones in Asia would have different results from South America and Africa on how the ball is played on their field turf surfaces.
I don't think it's insanity, they just don't know what they're getting into. Boneheads should have asked us
true, but keep in mind you and I are official experts on the suckiness of Dragon Stadium(Burn Bowl VI).