What's with playing the US-Mexico games in Arizona and Texas recently? It feels like they are playing the game at Azteca. It is insane that our team has to play in such a hostile environment when they are the HOME team. Why not play the games where there is not such a large Mexican population. Whatever happened to home field advantage?
$! Sunil Gulati said that last night, with over 70,000 fans paying an average ticket price of over $50 per, he was fairly certain that it would be the highest grossing night in US Soccer history. Nice catch for a friendly. On top of that, it gives our young players a chance to play in a "big game" environment. Don't worry, once the qualifiers come around, the US-Mexico game will be back in Columbus Ohio, where they'll get about 25,000 people and a pro-US crowd. But for a friendly, when there's really nothing at stake, it's advantageous for the players, and financially advantageous for the federation, to have this game in a bigger, pro-Mexico venue.
I agree. While Phoenix or Houston isn't Estadio Azteca, it's probably the next best thing. Nerazzuri sums up the advantages pretty well right there.
it's basically Mexican fans filling the bank account of the US Soccer Federation. Thanks for the help imporving our federation! I'm sure when the games matter, the locale will be quite different.
Because Mexicans care about soccer and Americans don't. If no Mexicans lived in the USA then those games would draw about 30,000 Americans at most. Americans don't care, so they don't spend money on tickets, or even watch. The USA vs Italy game in the World Cup drew something like 2 million viewers in the USA during the World Cup and there were some regular season baseball games that drew about the same on the same day.
It is a great situation, you're right. Thanks to them, we can afford to be better and better, and hence the more their fans will come out to see the rivalry - gotta love it
I feel your pain ...but this is good for our boys...They will be ready to play in any place of the planet without regard for the crowds....