I live 15 miles west of the stadium and there are a few raindrops out, lots of clouds and wind. It seems to be clearing up, though. Good weather for guys who play in the Premiership. Bad weather for walkup ticket sales.
ugly match but a good time. under 20k is hugely disappointing. hope USSF takes that into consideration
Too bad the match had to compete with college football's opening weekend (around here college football is much bigger than the NFL). If it had been earlier in the year the locals would have embraced the event in larger numbers. Had a great time however singing and chanting with Sam's Army. Hopefully will have another chance some day.
What a great trip. It was good seeing everyone, and my group had a great time. The tailgate was fantastic, with beer flying everyone and hay stacks on fire.The supporters section went nonstop for 90 minutes, which was awesome. Ill post some pictures later ! Chase
I think it sucks when the USA can't completely sell out a 20,000 seat stadium on a Saturday night, when they can sell out a 105,000+ seat stadium in Mexico on a Wednesday afternoon. When is the US going to wake up and support football?
You cannot give someone passion, you can only share yours. Besides, the Tri is really the only show in town for Mexico. Imagine what it would be like if there were no college football, basketball,NFL, MLB, and NBA. Watch what you wish for. It is pretty easy to get tickets to any home US game. When tickets become hard to come by, prices go up. On a positive note, USSF will certainly start sequestering smaller amounts for the away team. I dream of the day of a 60,000+ arena in all red with a tiny slither of green in the nose bleed section.
I should have mentioned both groups of course. Great that the 2 stand together as one passionate group. The RSL groups could take a lesson from this, put aside our differences and unite and chant/sing together like we did in 2005.
It was an interesting crowd. It reminded me of World Cup finals games becasuse there were fans there from all over. The Salvadoran fans had traveled as did a lot of US fans. It was nothing like what it would have been like in DC (where there are many Salvadorans). I had some good natured trash talk with Salvadoran fans but everyone was in good spirits, even the supporters groups that (unbelievably) were right next to each other. A decent crowd but I have to confess, aside from the goals, the most involved the locals got was their cheer when Kyle Beckerman went into the game. The locals were kinda quiet otherwise. On the Trax line back downtown after the game it was a hoot. Some AO guys with instruments were in our car and did some great post game singning and chanting (thought some of it wasn't g rated so I sensed some parents wanted to cover their kids ears).
There were 19,066 fan's at the game. That's pretty much 99% capacity of Rio Tinto Stadium. The crowd looked great on tv.
I saw a lot of empty seats on TV. I didn't see even one (1) empty seat at Azteca. At Azteca, people were standing outside wanting to BUY tickets for 2,500 pesos (about $200.00). My ticket was in the 500 peso ticket area (one of the best areas), some guy offered me 3,000 pesos (close to $300.00) for my ticket right outside the stadium. Were people offering that kind of money to buy tickets out side Rio Tinto?
1. It was Labor Day weekend 2. Probably 10,000 - 20,000 locals traveled to Dallas for the BYU game 3. On a regular weekend in 2005, 45,000 attended the USA/Costa Rica qualifier Considering all of the factors, you didn't have the "ideal" crowd, but what can you do?
Oh yeah we HAD A GRAND OLD TIME ON THE TRAIN!!! DC Here we come! Oh yeah sorry to that girl who's foot I jumped on
I wasn't saying advertise for free. I was just disappointed that they didn't even plug the match until the last possible moment (the week of the game). I don't know how the USSF goes about selling advertisements for the match on local stations but they didn't show any. Oh well I had a blast at the match and hope to make the one in DC! Thanks to all Sammers and American Outlaws for making it a memorable section!
I had a blast at this game, even though I went with family and sat in the middle. There were a lot of ES fans there before the game early on, which made me think U.S. fans would be far outnumbered. The U.S. fans came in a bit later, though, and were wearing many different colors. Even saw one guy cheering for the U.S. wearing a blue Manchester United shirt. I think the crowd would have looked a whole lot better if everyone wore red. I'm definitely going to go to future games and sit with AO/Sam's Army. Those guys were insane, standing and cheering 30 minutes prior to the game and long afterward. I had pretty good seats a few rows up around the middle of the park, but unfortunately just about everyone in the first 10 rows of my section kept sitting down after the exciting plays ended. I'd be left standing there myself all alone, looking at the other sections that stayed standing the entire match pretty much. I'd also like to think I was cheering Benny Feilhaber and not Kyle Beckerman when that substitution was made. It took me a few seconds to realize it was probably the other way around for the people around me; for some reason I thought Beckerman played for Colorado. Overall, this game was quite an upgrade from the only soccer matches I'd been to previously--a few FC Dallas matches and some Liverpool reserve matches at last year's Dallas cup. A few other impressions based on seeing them live: Marshall is pretty damn tall, Spector's taller than he looks on TV, fast doesn't begin to describe Davies or Donovan, and I have really horrible depth perception because I could have sworn we scored six goals. I still think that one that was cleared off the line in the first half went in, unfortunately.
What does Labor Day have to do with it? I know US Fans SUCK!! I hope I am alive to see the day with US fans get this passionate about football even on Thanksgiving or Christmas Day no matter where in the USA. http://www.ussoccer.com/Multimedia/Media-Center.aspx#/id=3a17388c-e97d-4bc7-b23e-56b8295572ad
1. Our football is not as popular as pointy ball in America. So comparing raw numbers between the two is silly. 2. However, when you take the very small amount of people who love football in this country and look at the percentage willing/able to travel for a match, it is probably a smaller percentage than pointy ball, but not quite as much as the raw numbers would make you think. 3. Finally-football has been marketed as the safe alternative to the traditional sports such as pointy ball, basket ball, hockey, etc. The Fed and MLS have cozied up to the soccer mom/family crowd. These people are going to the beach to drink wine coolers and eat overpriced seafood on Labor Day. 4. Labor day = back to school for many
labor day has alot to do with it in a state like utah. people love the outdoors and spend long weekends going to other parts of the state to recreate/camp/etc. I personally wasnt going to miss this game for anything, we even sprung for front row seats, but it hurt blowing a 3 day weekend because a soccer game was in the middle of it, and many look at labor day as the last chance to get out of town and go do something.
...especially when you consider that, for some bizarre reason, public schools in Utah started up on August 24th this year. Great time standing in the upper part of the supporters section!