Should all US Soccer WCQ's be played in SSS from now on?

My opinion is USSoccer should start thinking more about building an American Fan base. IT may be good business , but I find it odd that the promotions arm of USSoccer represents the Mexican National Team in the USA. They book their games and promote the Mexican national Team in the USA.

Sure there are alot of Tri-Colores fans here in the USA, but does this influence the parks booked for World Cup qualifiers?

I live in the Pacific Northwest and I am sick of the US soccer federation never booking decent games here. Japan was booked..cancelled due to 9/11 US soccer brought in Panama as a replacement. ....total BS Oh yeah we got Honduras at a baseball stadium too.

Both Real Madrid and Man U matches sold out in 1 hour...

The last WCQ here was in was in Portland vs Costa Rica before France 98

TAB RAMOS!!!

Do we have to have an MLS team to get WCQ's ...YUP!

Obviously this is US soccers shortsighted view.

 

There should be much less connection with MLS and the USMNT, therefore I completely disagree that only MLS SSS should hold qualifiers. Places like Los Angeles have too much soccer as it is, places like Hartford and Seattle don't get enough. Pointless.

 

Yes, in LA we do get lots of games, but there hasn't been one quality opponent/game here since the HDC opened.

 

Q: Should all US Soccer WCQ's be played in SSS from now on?
A: No.

 

All that is fine and good but when USA-Mexico counts it should be played right here in Hunt Park. As for the rest of the WCQs, play 'em wherever. I think that a pro-US crowd in any large US city is a pipe dream. Play in Hartford, Rochester, Columbus, and Portland, and you'll have a pro-US crowd. Nothing against you big cities, but it's not about you. It's about the best environment for the team.

 

Exactly. But if you can get a place like Salt Lake, that hosted a fantastic qualifier, with 42,000 US fans in attendance ( there were some costa ricans, not too many), then thats even better.

I personally would love to see as many SSS as possible, and seeing as how I will be flying to all the qualies, it would be a good opprotunity to see them.

 

just but it so much better to see thousands of plastic mexicans cry about losing to the gringos

 

Play any team not from Mexico, Guatemala, or El Salvador at the HDC and we'll outnumber them easily. Give us something other than a Scandanavian B team for christs sake.

 

yeah, I really hope we can get a qualifier next year...

 

Hope for Trinidad. Better soccer.

 

I really really do not agree with playing qualifiers in only SSSs. If you look at the recent attendence numbers, there is really not been a solid turnout at the SSS sites recently. There were fewer people at the Denmark and Guatamala games combined then showed up for the USA - Ecuador match in Tampa. I agree with playing some games at HDC, PizzaHut and Columbus (who should ALWAYS get the Mexico game in my opinion). However, I think Cleveland, Tampa, Nashville, Salt Lake City, and East Hartford have already proven to be solid places for US home games. I would say Birmingham but they have put field turf into Legion so that venue is pretty much out of the question.

 

Denmark? Are you seriously using that as a benchmark? Don't blame the fans blame the USSF for taking the SoCal Soccer market for granted. They didn't even advertise this game locally not to mention they pitted us against a Scandanavian B team. When was the last time we were given a meaningful National team match? O, yea that's right the HDC is yet to host one.

 

I'm with HHM on this one....US/Meheho must be played in Columbus!!

So look at it this way....it's only every four years we have to go to that godforsaken place!!


No offense Mike!!

 

depends on who we play?

 

yeah, we have been given some sh***y games here in So Cal, but luckily we did get two important games this summer( Gold Cup ), and hopefully our fans can show well and we can get a qualifier in 08 or 09.

 

Here's my feelings/thoughts on the matter:

When the guys fly in from Europe, since the East coast is closer, it makes a bit of travel sense to have games on that side. Would I like to see more games in the Pacific Northwest? Sure. But, what's up there? A few baseball stadiums (Portland and Seattle). What about Seattle's NFL stadium or the WSU Cougars or Washington Husky stadiums though?

If the result of the game doesn't matter, go for the large stadiums and make a few extra bucks.

If the result does matter, then by all means, it should be in a place where the majority of the tickets could be sold to that team's season ticket holders and "Friends of US Soccer" or whatever they're calling that mailing list these days.

 

Agreed fully. Let's hope it's not scheduled on the same day as the OSU opener again though. I'm already psyched! Aye yi yi yi, somebody stole my sombrero...

 

Are you going to argue that Denmark's B-team is worse than the team Morocco brought to Nashville? or that Latvia brought to East Hartford? or that Venezuela brought to Cleveland? Each of those games topped 24,000. would that many people have showed up in Carson for those games?

Fullerton had Colombia in 2005 and failed to sell out a 10,000 seat stadium. Three months later, Salt Lake City packed 40,000 for a Qualy against Costa Rica.

 

We arent just looking at the team the opponent brought, but also the team the US played with. The three matches you mention were send off matches, in which we were playing with our world cup squad. At the Denmark match, it was a meaningless friendly not even on a FIFA date, in which we played with players such as Josh Gros and bryan namoff. There was a absolutely no type of advertising for that game, or the one in Fullerton that I also attended, in which Chad Marshall was playing, Pat Noonan, and Steve Ralston.

I was also in SLC, and they had been advertising the game for months, and the amount of hype up there was phenomenal.

What I'm trying to say is there are plenty of US soccer fans in southern california that support the national team, but its a little bit harder to get excited when a Norway C team is coming to play, against your B team.

 

Yea, I'll argue it until the cows come home. As Chase above me said, those were send off matches. Everyone was excited about the WC and wanted to see our full team play a few games before leaving. And yes, probably at least that many would have shown up.

I'm not quite sure what you are getting at. A non-advertised Tuesday night game with a bunch of B squads vs. a WCQer against a strong Concacaf opponent...you should know which one would win every single time. If the Costa Rica game was played at the HDC and was advertised in the same way there is no doubt it would have sold out.

How many times must I say we are yet to get a meaningful game...