http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/sp...7DD788A725BB576E8625754800154BA4?OpenDocument Where would they play in St. Louis? Are they assuming the Collinsville stadium gets built?
I find this surprising. I went to the men's final in 1996 between Nigeria and Argentina. It was held in Athens, GA which is much closer to Atlanta than St. Louis is to Chicago. I recall FIFA being upset, feeling that the AOOC had slighted them by placing the final well away from the hub of the games. I wouldn't think that Collinsville would be large enough to hold the final match. Perhaps some of the preliminary matches; some of the preliminary matches were held in Birmingham, AL in 1996. Would they be thinking of putting grass down inside the Edward Jones dome like they did in Detroit for the 1994 World Cup?
I went to that game, too! I was pretty young, and I didn't read bigsoccer back then (did it exist?), though, so I wasn't aware of FIFA's feelings on the matter. I think Collinsville would definitely be too small for the final match.
Yeah, but didn't China have games all over the place during this past Olympics. The World Cup typically has several venues around the host country. I don't see the location being a problem, but the stadium is. Unless St. Louis gets an MLS team, there will be nowhere to play in the St. Louis area. I don't think they would ever allow a game to be played in the dome and I tend to agree.
Interesting, Could this be an effort to say that Olympic money would be used to pay for building the stadium in Collinsville for the Games. This would free up Coopers cash for an MLS team and funding his WPS team. 2016 is a long way off
Where did they say "final"? Atlanta 96 soccer games were held in Washington, Birmingham, and Miami (and possibly others I've forgotten).
There was a piece about this on the Channel 2 news this morning. The reporter was standing outside the Edward Jones dome, and indicated that officials would be meeting at the MAC this morning, and the venue they were considering was in fact the Ed. They said that Chicago is one of 4 finalists to host the 2016 games, so who knows.
The USWNT played there against Mexico in 2007, so it's not unheard of. Now I'm officially rooting for Chicago to get those Olympics.
There you go - we're right there with Miami and Vancouver - we too have a stadium in which MLS could start playing immediately .... but really shouldn't.
I totally agree. I would love to see an Olympic soccer game here, but soccer in a dome just isn't good at all. Now if we had an outdoor stadium...
I would seriously doubt they would play the final here. Cause....doesn't Chicago have their own stadium? We would get highly touted games like Togo vs Australia or something.
No, they definitely would not play the final here. It would be in Chicago. However, if they did play here, they would probably have one group here, meaning you would probably have a couple of top notch teams and then two others. I just can't believe they would play in a dome, although I do think they played in a dome the last time the Olympics were in the USA. Didn't they play some preliminary round games in Detroit and bring in sod for the field? My memory isn't that good, but for some reason I remember something like that.
Correction, it wasn't the 1996 Olympics that games were played in a dome, but the 1994 World Cup did have the Pontiac SilverDome as one of its venues. So yes, it isn't unheard of.
I remember reading about those. They used natural grass but the roofs didn't open, rather the field could be rolled outside into the parking lot when it was raining.
I guess they would have to play in the dome if they play in the St. Louis area. I just read a story that said that the minimum seating to meet the Olympic Committee's criteria is 30,000. The new stadium in Collinsville, if it ever gets built , is only going to seat around 18,500. The dome is the only stadium in the area that meets the criteria.
Sapporo Dome hosted a couple matches in 2002. As already mentioned, it has a natural field outside that is rolled in on top of a field-turf baseball field a level below. The dome is necessary as the city averages 240 inches of snow a year (for comparison, Green Bay averages around 50 inches of snow a year.)
Yes... but Athens was used ONLY for the semi's and final. The group stage matches were played in places like Birmingham, Alabama and Washington, DC. Chicago is also considering the Twin Cities (more specifically, the University of Minnesota's yet-to-be-built football stadium) for soccer as well. If you recall, the tournament in Beijing was also played throughout the country, not just Beijing.