Pre-match: Strikers vs. NSC Minnesota Stars ::: NASL CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES LEG 2

Wish I could be at this game! Best of luck to the Red and Yellow from NYC.

3-1 is gonna be tough to overcome, but if anyone can do it, the Strikers can.

 

Groupon deal for the final. I just emailed it to everyone I know.

http://www.groupon.com/deals/gl-for...Referral&utm_medium=email&utm_source=uu834092

 

Well, no use bemoaning what is in the past overly much. The Stars played an excellent game, give them credit, and we were terrible. I think it was probably dumb of us to expect a continuation of the consistency we'd seen over the last three games. This team has not been solid all around four games in a row all year. We laid an egg, simlpe as that.

All that said, we've seen the Strikers playing their best soccer of the year recently until last night, so that does give some hope. As does playing at home in front of what should be the largest crowd of the year. It's a difficult taks in front of them, but certainly not impossible. I don't think anyone is saying it's 100% over at this point. I'm a little surprised that the tickets sold isn't higher yet. I really thought we had a good shot at 10,000, and maybe we still do, but I'll be happy with our largest crowd of the year in the 7,500 range.

I think Chacho is definitely done with this team. He has looked slow, and old, and the one asset he actually brought to the table still was his ability on set pieces. But even that has been lacking in the last two games. I think if Palacio is ready we see him back in Saturday. Perhaps we'll see Arrieta back in for Gordon too as I think Arrieta offers a little more on the attack than Gordon, and goals are what we need now.

 

Been meaning to post this, but kept forgetting before. Can someone talk to the Strikers FO and PLEASE get them to remove the football lines for the NASL final championship game? This team and this league need to get some legitimacy if they're ever going to succeed. Playing the league championship final on a field with football lines is embarassing. Hell, if they need volunteers to do something to make it happen, let me know, I'll be at Gate C Saturday morning to work!

 

Probably all of us would like this, but, Lockhart is administered by the Broward County School Board as a stadium for HS sports. I doubt they can afford to reline it for the final then reline it afterwards for HS football. I suppose that they'd do it if the Strikers would foot the bill, but, the Strikers are a Div 2 franchise in a marginal sport. I doubt if their budget could foot the bill.

The day when the Strikers play a full season on a field that has markings only for the sport they play is the season that the Strikers play in a stadium they own. Consequently, learn to live with it & cheer for the Strikers. We're lucky to have 'em playing there at all, superfluous field marking or not.

 

http://highschoolsports.sun-sentinel.com/2011/schedules/20111028/20111027

Ely's playing Boyd Anderson at Lockhart Friday night.

 

I keep thinking that the casual fan coming to this match might not understand the whole goals aggregate situation. I suspect there might be more than a few cheers from the under-educated crowd if the match ends 1-0 Strikers. I hope the announcer makes a point to inform everyone a few times during the match as to what the current aggregate is. Ideally, the scoreboard would reflect it, but I suppose that would make too much sense.

 

Just to add some interest to the occasion, Hurricane Rina should be affecting South Florida in some way this weekend, according to TWC site. It should not be a hurricane. It could be a tropical storm. Or, it could simply be another tropical rain event. In any and all cases it should have some effect, however slight, on the game Saturday night. Just what we don't need...

 

TWC's 1100 report & forecast has Rina affecting the Keys & South Florida on Sunday or Monday with a near 0% chance of being a hurricane when it does whatever it may do. The forecast tracks for Rina for most of the models have it dissipating in the Gulf. Only one has it continuing beyond the Gulf and over southern Florida, down from 3, with the rest showing it muddling about western Cuba or the Eastern Gulf or back south to die in the Caribbean. It looks like we may have a decent night for the game...

Now all we can do is hope for a Striker win by 3 or more goals & it will be perfect...

GO STRIKERS!!!

 

Got my tickets for the game (3) today. Word I got was that we're around or over 7,000 sold so far. I could not get an answer about an online store, but I was told that a full line of Striker stuff would be available for next season. I'll save my pennies for my Striker Scarf being available for the season opener at the latest....

TWC has it as a 40% chance of rain at Lockhart Stadium from 7pm on Friday until 9AM Saturday morning. We'll see how this changes over the next 24 to 48 hours...

 

TWC maintains it's prediction of a 40% chance of rain from 5PM Friday into Saturday. That 40% is for all day Saturday until at least 9PM. We'll see.

Hopefully, if it does rain it will not be a gator strangler like the one we had for the 1st FCTB game.

Here's hoping for 8,000+ attendance.

Go Strikers!!!

 

Rina's remnant will affect us. We'll be getting rain from it today until Monday with the highest chance of rain on Saturday, up to 70%. Up to 5" of rain are expected in the southern 3rd of Florida this week-end with more possible.

We just can't get a break from the weather. The Strikers selling many tickets seems to demand a deluge on game day....

 

I haven't seen much of this on here (maybe because the site doesn't have a big following in south Florida?), but SoccerbyIves has been covering the Strikers/NASL Championship in recent weeks.

There was a story on there today that I'm sure the Striker Likers will want to read:

http://www.soccerbyives.net/soccer_...sl-championship-series-finale-optimistic.html

 

The writer's from Coral Springs/Margate and has been to a few Strikers games...if it wasn't us I'm not sure they'd be giving NASL the same amount of attention, but I'm not going to complain.

 

Strikers 0 v 0 Minnesota

Minnesota wins the championship 3-1 on aggregate. I did not stay for the trophy presentation...

Rainy night. Someone tried to remove the gridiron from the field. Uprights for the goalposts were gone, too.

The Strikers tried, but the 2 goal lead was too much for them. For all of that, thanks for the season guys. It was a pretty good one....

ETA: The Sun-Sentinel reports the game had 6,489 in attendance....the largest crowd of the season...

 

I believe it was 6700 for the opener. Unfortunately, the bigger the crowd, the bigger the let down this season. It's really a shame that the weather refused to cooperate this season from a marketing stand point.


Minnesota controlled our midfield's ability to connect, in part due to the aggregate situation, and we couldn't come up with anything in the final third...it was a throw back to the lean months earlier in the season.

My only consolation was being correct to wait to buy a jersey at $40 instead of $65 or $50...and no longer having to listen to the idiots behind me.

 

According to the Herald the crowd was 6,849. I checked the Sun-Sentinels figure and it, too, was 6,849. Must have misread it when I found it @ midnight. If both newspapers are correct then the the 6,800+ would be the highest attendance of the season. Sadly, what might it have been on a nice fall Ft Lauderdale evening? It's quite possible the 8,000 to 9,000+ figure I heard when I bought my tickets could have been realized.

The Herald also mentioned that we had many players forward that are 5' 6" to 5' 8" tall playing against a backline that had players 6' 3" to 6' 4" tall. Kinda hard to win the ball in the air against that group. Especially when Minnesota usually had 9 players in the area to defend. Not much room to maneuver then either. Smart play when you enter a game 2 goals up. It worked real good for them. Now a team that finished the regular season with more losses than wins are NASL champions.

 

It was a heck of a ride this season...beyond anyone's expectations, although there were early signs that this incarnation of the franchise would be different.

Think back to the early event on the beach, the parade, bringing Tim Robbie into the fold, even the team's logo/redesign--all done with great thought and respect for the original brand. Having 'The Big O' handle the in-game announcing...the pre-printed season tickets (with the old and new images of players)...pre-game festivities, an increased media presence on 640am and local tv/newspaper, etc.

Outside of a bit more advertising, better weather and a little more size up front, I can't think of much that needs drastic improvement.

Big props to the supporters groups and anyone who helped triple last year's average attendance-- you know who you are. I look forward to many more years of all this. Will there be challenges regarding personnel, stadium issues? Of course. But let's focus on our one, unifying theme....we hate Tampa FC!!!

See you in April.