Just don't judge it to be a substandard field until we actually find out what's going to happen. Remember, this is all secondhand rumors and heresay (although fairly decent sources) It may indeed be crap, or it may be adequate.
From the pictures, it looks fairly decent. I was on the Boston College football field, and it had the short blades of turf and I could tell that it would just be horrid for soccer. The FF field looks a bit more 'lush'.
here's what i know... the field is very comfortable to run around on -- i've never done so in cleats but the football and lacrosse (and field hockey i guess) players do so and they certainly far prefer it to the old turf-on-concrete. and as for dimensions... they fit a standard football field in with quite a bit of room to spare. i don't know the exact numbers but remember that the inner four lanes of the track are smaller than your standard track at places like berlin or the delle alpi. used to be that the franklin field track ended where that gold divider bar goes for the penn relays. but they had to expand the track at some point and because they couldn't knock the brick wall over they had to build the new laps inside the old ones. having said that, i think there's plenty of space for a reasonably sized pitch.
franklin field is NOT as narrow as ohio state, you've got the jumping pits and runways for the vault which give more apparent width, but you still can't have those be in the field of play for obvious reasons.... didn't know where to put this.... http://www.philly.com/mld/dailynews/14984512.htm but good article by John Smallwood calling for klinnsmann and a decent review of the current state of the usmnt.. usa winning in 2014??? wow...i guess philly still wouldn't have won anything by then, so ti gives me something to route for... 2014 is supposed to be in brazil........ well, 1950...beating brazil... good things happen in brazil??
I think you jammy buggers actually beat us in Brazil in 1950, but thanks for not reminding everyone............. Whoops.
On a serious note, the article is a good call. Klinnsman sp? is settled in CA now with an American wife and obviously loves his new ish home country. I f he doesn't deliver much better international results he won't be pilloried like he would be in an established soccer nation, if he does....WOW will he have hit the jackpot?
two things: 1. 2014 may be supposed to be in brazil but i highly doubt they'll be able to put together the infrastructure in time. and the big cash cow will be sitting in wait ready to go at a moment's notice -- it's not hard at all to pick 12 american stadiums that will be fully built and able to take the world cup in 2014, especially with the new giants/jets stadium going up in the swamps. and heaven forbid philadelphia should get the 2016 olympics, because there'll be a lot of push to get the new stadium involved in the world cup. obviously that part is fantasy but the usa hosting in 2014 is not that much of a stretch -- and from there we get the home field advantage. 2. alexi lalas made a rather interesting point on world cup live this evening: klinsmann succeeded by using american methods on the german players. do american methods work on american players as such? he's not so sure. i definitely think klinsmann is the best man for the job right now, but whoever comes in had better have the cojones to stand up to the people who run the fed and make them build a real player development system -- which includes the hispanic players and so on and so forth.