I have always heard the field would be 115x75 for the new stadium. However in this Steve Davis article it sounds to be smaller: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/city/collin/stories/040905dnspoCCstadium_.4b1fd.html "The field will probably be marked at 71 yards wide, matching the Cotton Bowl's current width. Stadium officials say they might be able to squeeze a maximum of 73 or 74 yards in width from the grounds." Why on earth do we build a stadium with soccer in mind but make the field area so small you have to squeeze a 73 or 74 yeard field into it! Steve is usually good about reporting facts correctly, so I doubt this is some rumor.
Huh. I too thought that they'd be putting in a 75 yard field. Not that 72 or 73 yards is anything to sneeze at, but still, it's not as if they didn't have control over this.
Has the width of the Cotton Bowl ever been an issue? I always thought everyone was generally pleased with the CB pitch. I took this as a good thing.
No doubt its because they want fans close to the action on the field. One of the few complaints I've heard about the Home Depot Center is that fans sit too far from the touchline. The HDC was designed so that it could handle an 80 yd wide pitch, but after a game or two the Galaxy narrowed the playing field to 72 yds or so. Arsenal's home, Highbury, has a 110 yd x 73 yd pitch, so the Frisco SSS will fall right in line with that.
It doesn't bug me. Except for Spartan Stadium's narrowness and the HDC's width, I wouldn't know any of the field dimensions in this league without looking them up and I certainly wouldn't notice the difference between 72-73 and 75 yards. I'm guessing that the players know the difference, but they can surely cope.
Highbury is know as a bit of a racetrack due to the small field, so I'm not sure being similar makes this standard. Personally, I'm not worked up about field size. I think this will be excellent in Frisco. The only thing that is bothersome is the insecure feeling that this was done to accomodate the high school football team and not the MLS club.
According to this http://www.stadiumguide.com/highbury.htm its a 110x71 yard pitch at Highbury. So if they do squeeze a few extra yards it will be better.
I can't imagine that that was the reason. If it was, somebody was being dumb. A football field is 53-1/3 yards wide. With a 78-80 yard wide field (the width that would be required for a 75 yards soccer pitch), the stands are 37-39 feet away for football. With a 75-76 yard wide field (the width that the one in Frisco will likely be in order to accomodate a 71 yard wide field), the stands are 32-33 feet away for football. In other words, it's a hardly a difference worth considering. Either way, the football fans are still going to be 11-13 yards away from the field of play.
One of the world's most famous and revered stadiums, Estadio Santiago Bernabeu, has a 107x72 yard pitch. Seems like this really isn't a problem.
So what if they were trying to accomodate the high school a bit? Frisco ISD is spending more money on the stadium than HSG so it makes sense to make small compromises to make sure everyone ends up happy.
If we're trying to attract WCQs, why not at least have the ABILITY to go larger (like they do at the HDC)? I guess we're pretty much locked in now, but I would have thought that it would be a good idea to do more than just 110x75....
Considering all the stadiums in this country that don't have 75-yard-wide fields that get WCQs (as in, everyone except for Crew Stadium and HDC), I don't think that it's any major impediment. After all, RFK and Foxboro have gotten an assload of WCQs, and RFK is the wider of the two at 72 yards.
I think those numbers are in meters, 105-68 is the international standard in meters while 95 is the minimum . 105 yards are around 95 meters, on the verge of legality, there is no need for top teams to have such short pitches.
No, I am almost positive that is in yards. Anfield is listed at 110 x 75. If that is meters it would be 121 x 82 yards which is beyond the max allowed of 120 x 80.
I have no problem with a 71 or 73 yard wide field. What I have a problem is the need to "squeeze" to get a 73-74 yard wide field. It conjures images of Spartan stadium, with players on the bench having to move out of the way to allow throw-ins. The field should be built to accept a 75 yard field comfortably. Then if you want to narrow a few yards, it is no big deal and certainly won't put the fans too far away.
The 120-80 is the max in meters. After looking into that site, I think they have some things mixed up. Almost all of the stadiums have 105-68 dimensions. That is the standard in meters. Then you have Higbury listed as 110-75, making it one of the biggest pitches in Europe, when it’s clearly among the smaller ones. My clubs pitch is 100-70 in meters, so there’s no way Ac Milan or Real Madrid is playing in a 68 yard , around 63 meter , pitch.
Actually I had ANFIELD at 110 x 75. Highbury is listed at 110 x 71. Highbury is known to be narrow, so I doubt this is meters, since that would make it wider than most. I agree the standard is 105 x 68 meters or 115 x 75 yards. The site might be mixing its measurements.
A web site I came across listed Highbury at 110 yd x 73 yd so that agrees with the impression that Highbury is slightly more narrow than the typical EPL pitch.
That's certainly fair. It just plays into ongoing nervousness about whether FC Dallas will have sufficient influence over the venue when it comes to dates and field conditions and markings, etc. As I said before, I think this pitch size is a total non-issue.
FCD WILL have control over dates...that's for sure. As for field conditions/markings that remains to be seen. But, IMO, its all down to how much they (the FCD FO) cares about those things. Yes, the ISD has put more money into this then HSG. But HSG are the managers of the property....that is clear.
It's not the size of the field, but the quality of the play on it that matters. *walks away muttering to himself*