and its in east hartford, CT!! i am from CT and that field is 15 form my house, you bet your bottom dollar me and any family/friends i can drag to it will be there!!! anyone else from CT or surrounding areas(ny, ma) gonna make the trip down? i cant wait for tickets to go on sale. im so excited for this game now. and its trinidad....i want a goal fest for the usa! forza inter
I saw the name of the stadium listed somewhere; it sounded like maybe a UConn field? It was named after somebody. I'm about 45 min. north of there and very much looking forward to having the Nats more nearby than Foxboro (though many fond memories of those trips, of course). Don't know if this is appropriate thread ethics, but you should check out the Sam's Army site to see where they'll set up in the parking lots, or maybe help advise them where's best? See you there.
should this have an [R] in it? seriously, looks like a super facility. i may need to schedule a trip back east for this week.
wtf hartford ct wow i mean that is like out in left field. Why not giants stadium or the razor if you are going to pull northeast or the eagles stadium. So we now have birmingham, salt lake city, hartford, and columbus as our world cup qualifier sites. We just need a national team stadium that is our fortress, but who knows maybe crew stadium is that for us, im tired but its just annoying - HARTFORD come on, it like choosing raleigh where I live to host a qualie, lots of great soccer fans but not a great place to host a world cup qualifier
its not that bad,,its within driving distance of Nyc and boston ppl and of course the ppl of CT itself im all for changeing it up. Put this game in crew stadium and you'd get 12k ppl to show up, put it in CT and you might get simmlar numbers but atleast most of those 12k ppl will be "new customers"
Hey guys, not to be hating or anything but the US really ruined this one. they should have played in the Home Depot Center. The only non hispanic country and the chance to play in the so called palace of US soccer has only been used once by the US Men in a 1-1 denmark tie! if they dont play panama here at the Home Depot Center, i am gonna be pretty pissed. i am sorry but if there is a stadium built for your national team and it is never used, whats the freaking point!!!!
maybe its a seasonal thing. When its cold in the N. east (which is 65% of the time) the games will be played at the HDC , excludeing mexico of course.
Amazingly there are restrictions on the use of Home Depot Center for soccer! Which is why the USNMT had to play a recent friendly against Colombia at some college site near LA.
west coast will always have the problem of travel for euros and the resulting jet lag.... last wcq in connecticut was in new britian in 1989 against guatemala, with tab ramos, I believe netting the 2-1 game winner... event was SOLD OUT 20k or so nice crowd, good atmosphere... we'll see what 16 years brings... I suspect 40k type crowd...
I'm pretty sure if the game were in New York, Foxboro, or Hartford, the attendance would probably be similar. It's the one WCQ in the northeast in 2006, so like WCQ in the northeast usually are, it should be well supported.
Wow, thats amazing!!!! Whats up with that wasn't one of the reasons the HDC was built was for the US??
Does this surprise you? Par for the course as they say. The "Home of American Soccer" has hosted a scintilating C team battle with Denmark. WooHoo! Really, it is too bad, because it's a fantastic stadium. Hopefully a meaningful match will be assigned to the HDC, a real strong friendly, or WCQ sometime in the near future.
That game, played in June-1989, was held at Veteran's Memorial Stadium. It may have since been remodeled, but in those days was not very big, i.e., field not completely encircled by permanent seats. It was indeed a sell out, but the attendance was listed at 10,516. The US got a monster goal from Bruce Murray on a tremendous side volley after a terrific cross from John Harkes in the third minute. After Guatemala tied it, the US got the game winner in about the 70th minute on an own goal. Starting from a corner kick, Steve Trittschuh out jumped the Guatemalan keeper to head onto to Eric Erichmann who turned and tried to side volley past three Gua defenders covering behind the now out of position (and on the ground) keeper. On Eichmann's shot, one of the defenders headed the ball off his teammate's shoulder/back where it caromed just past the goal line, where it was cleared by another defender, but just too late to prevent the own goal. On that particular corner kick, Guatemala was playing with 10 men, as Rodas was on the ground behind the goal receiving treatment from trainers. Just before the CK, Gansler was going to sub in Peter Vermes (I'm not sure for who), but after the goal, Gansler waved off the sub request to the fourth official. You're right, it was a nice US crowd and a good atmosphere! US lineup: Vanole, Windischmann, Trittschuh, Banks, Stollmeyer, Bliss (Doyle), Gyau (Caligiuri), Harkes, Ramos, Murray, Eichmann.
I believe the restrictions deal with weeknight matches only (part of it being located on a college campus and all, IIRC).
also, in that guatemala match, the chapines had a player red carded... that was my first usmnt wcq match, got to see usa play some soviet club team in philadelphia in front of over 40,000 and another usa win on a counter goal, despite bunkering the entire match... recall the match being broadcast LIVE on radio in english on WIP... caught Keller the first time in hershey, may of 1990 or so, in a prep match for italy...poland brought a lot of kids and usa crushed them... polish fans were stunned that day... then off to italy for my first WC live.... those were innocent days.... wynaldas red card againt the czechs for a stupid retaliation.... getting taunted by local teens in a florence pizzeria that italia was gonna whup usa 10-0... schillaci misses pk, butt save saves italy... austria match highlighted tab ramos torching them... usmnt has come a very long way in 15 years, and those who weren't around back then, can't grasp how far... just say USA was Canada back then.....
True. Around the 85th minute, Funes was taken down hard from behind by Harkes (who probably should have received a yellow on the play) and retaliated with a punch to the side/back of Harkes' head. It happened right in front of the referee who sent Funes off. The Guatemalans were pretty upset that Harkes wasn't even called for a foul. In fact, the game restarted with a US free kick!
I understand everybody's problems with some of the selections. The NorthEast used to get all the big games but this year Columbus deservadly so and Salt Lake City somehow got the two big games. Hartford is a great choice however for this midweek encounter. The Buzz is around flying around Pratt and Whitney where I work which is located right next to the stadium. Pratt and Whitney actually donated the land to build the stadium so the stadium itself is on old airstrips. The parking lots go all the way down three different air strips so its def different. The stadium was built with soccer in mind and everybody will be impressed once they see it. The Road system in CT was built almost to perfection in terms of locations with easy access to NYC, Boston, Springfield, Hartford, Worcester, Providence, Waterbury, New Haven and areas of Vermont and New Hampshire all within a 2 hour drive. What more could they ask for in a weds night affair with what is the worst team in the group. Expect a pro American crowd around 30K. I expect alot of families to be attendence which could sell it out at 40K.
??? I've done a bit of driving & always thought the Connecticut system among the worst! It has gotten a little better without the toll booths. Before the connection south of Hartford was built, it was a nightmare to get from I-91 onto I-84. There always seemed to be delays in Hartford. The Merritt was narrow & winding, I-95 a madhouse. I now avoid Conn. entirely by driving almost to Albany on 87, then onto 90 in Mass. Still, I'm glad to see the game at Rentschler & will try to attend.
Hartford wins out over Giants Stadium, Gillette Stadium, and Lincoln for one reason. Capacity. Put 25,000 - 30,000 ( Based on history, you can't realistically expect any more) in any of the big three stadiums (or any other large pro or college stadium) and those stadiums still look empty. Put them in a 40,000 seat stadium, you just may have a bit of atmosphere. Yes Hartford is a bit of a second or third tier city. But they have a properly sized stadium (on the field and off) and if they provide a 2 hour home field advantage, you really can't ask for more (besides bars and tailgating areas). Go ahead and b!tch and complain, but give it a chance. Looking forward to the 90 minute drive.
if lincoln was the venue it'd be 50k+.... just look at the attendances when usmnt ever played in philly.... over 40k in 1989 over 40k in 1991.... and that's before the boom..the ticket distribution network is amongst the best there is in southeast pa
If the US played Qualifier is the Home Depot Center, it probably wouldn't be much of a "home" match for them unless US Soccer did something "Foofie" with the ticket sales, which would be nice, but is generally frowned upon in the US. The same would go for NY if we had a small ground to hold the games in. I'm glad the game is in CT. I live in Brooklyn NY and it sure beats having to go to Foxboro or DC for qualifiers... Speaking of which: What is up w/ the Foxboro attendance lately? Revs attendance has been way down, and even the last qualifier that was there was not very impressive. I remember from when I worked at MLS that the Boston local papers covered the Revs pretty well and we always attributed that to the good attendance they had. Has the coverage in the local media up there been slipping? Just curious. What this league really could use is for the print and TV media to pay a little more attention to them. If they did, attendance would probably spike upwards of 8-10 thousand a game initially. Anyhow, just a thought. -Arthur