Why do you fear so much to play 'away' games at home?

we SHOULD be able to... but somehow we don't. we all watch on t.v. instead of shelling out $200 -$1000 for airfare no to mention hotel accomodations food game tickets etc. to gaurentee our U.S. team game is always sold out with U.S fans.

 

well, it is against our laws to prevent anyone from buying tickets- and we have so many immigrants from so many countries that it is just not that easy to do. So we have to put games where there are few Hispanics- like Columbus Ohio or Foxboro massachusetts.
It is OK actually, but our Federation has to think about where to put the games.

 

Re: Re: Re: Why do you fear so much to play 'away' games at home?

well, yeah .... but it isn't that easy. the immigrant fans are organized as well. plus, it's a tad difficult (i.e. expensive, time-consuming) to travel to all these games. the U.S. is kinda large country. it's not dinky like costa rica. plus, let's face it .... soccer is still a fringe sport here. thanks for your concern, though

 

You think too highly of us.

As stated, there are more immigrants in this country than you shake a cat at. And while we do outnumber them and have many more fans than they have, we are much too casual about getting tickets for these games. While many of us will go to a qualifying game against Honduras, we really don't think getting a ticket at the last minute would be a problem. After all, you wouldn't really think that many people would be interested in such a game. Then, every Honduran and his mother on the East coast is foaming to be at that game.

I think we've come a long way on the field. The fans will be gradually get wiser.

 

Just ask an injun'.

Um. Chief running wolf wishes we outnumbered them.

the bruce needs to call up a native american to increase our exposure to that audience.

 

Re: Re: Why do you fear so much to play 'away' games at home?

These places don't really exist, though. If you are an imigrant from Honduras or Guatemala living in the US and the one chance to see your national team anywhere near where you live is on US soil, you come. It's most likely cheaper to fly to somewhere in the States than to fly home.

 

There is a difference between fearing an away atmosphere at a home game (which is, like, ridiculous), and just not liking an away atmosphere at a home game (which is understandable).

It's not easy organizing within the 3rd (4th?) geographically-largest nation in the world, especially when only every fourteenth or fifteenth person is a soccer fan.

 

Have you been to one of these qualifiers in question? I have (US-Jamaica, 1997), and it was unreal. Thought I was in Kingston. No joke.

It makes a difference. Fear is the right word. Unless you like not qualifying.

 

Christ, after twelve years of surviving the Hex, we should be used to playing hostile WCQs by now. Fear only lasts so long, you know.

 

you know, it cuts both ways.It is true that the USA does not get the powerful support at home that some teams get- but you know what? Our boys are used to it and do pretty well. Well enough to qualify 3 times in a row. In the end, it is how you play that matters most. I think it DOES battle toughen the team a bit.

 

The thing is, we _like_ to play friendlies in those kind of conditions because if we play Mexico at the Rose Bowl we can sell the place out (100,000) and collect some serious cash.

The problem is when WCQ come around we have to balance concerns with regards to cash to concerns about qualifying.

The recent bad situation was vs. Honduras in Washington D.C. in Sept. of 2001. Playing qualifiers against anyone in DC is asking for trouble except for the serious minnows and Canada.

 

I think there's a relativally(sp!?!?) easy solution for this 'problem'.

If the US federation would introduce a system where they only sell tickets to registered fans and then check how many games people have been going to... you can give the most loyal ones the first picks. In a few years that should help.

It's how Ajax allocates tickets for European and Dutch away matches (although for us it alos brings some new problems, but they're mostly due to the small size of several Dutch stadiums and especially the small away-ends)

 

Sam's Army does work with the USSF to group US fans together in one section, but a registration system wouldn't work for an entire stadium.

And as someone mentioned, it's tough for US supporters to travel to all of the domestic World Cup qualifiers when they are scattered around the country - distance and transportation are significant factors.

Let's face it... it's a little bit easier for an Ajax supporter in Amsterdam to get to a European away match in Spain or Italy than it is for a Washington, D.C.-based member of Sam's Army to go to a USMNT match in Columbus or Houston.

 

That doesn't matter. You don't have to go all games... just every now and then. This way it will take a few years for the system to be effective... but still...

I dunno... is it? It's further away... but with some organization I'm pretty sure you could charter a plane or somehow get a cheap flight.

 

There are two separate issues here:

1) The number of fans in the US that support our CONCACAF foes;

2) The number of fans in the US that support the USMNT.

I am SURE that the numbers of US fans that attend USMNT qualifiers has risen in the past decade. I also have no prof of that.

Thing is, I'm just as sure that not much of a dent has been made in getting Honduran or Mexican or Jamaican or Salvadoran or Guatemalan or Costa Rican (you get my point) supporters living in the US (be they US citizens or non-citizens) to switch allegiance from their old national team to the US.

Take that Sept. 01 qualifier in DC. I was there, and it was an amazing sight. Tens of thousands of white-clad Honduran fans outside the stadium. As I recall, they had to open up the RFK parking lot at something like 1:00am because of the Honduran supporter traffic. (Remember, too, that this match took place on the long Labor Day holiday weekend - I'm sure that made it far easier for more Honduran fans to attend).

But the flip side was that there were US fans at RFK that day, too. In pure numbers, who really knows, but maybe 30-40% were US fans (out of a total crowd of 55,000). The Hondurans (fans and players, I mean) were far more organized, louder, just more full-throated and committed than we were (frankly, it was embarrassing). BUT, there were thousands of Hondurans outside the stadium, ticketless, because 20-25,000 US backers beat them to TicketMaster.

It sucks. It really sucks to be consistently outnumbered for "home" qualifiers. Get used to it, because the tide won't turn anytime soon. But I do believe we're making progress. Witness the qualifiers in KC and US-Mexico in Columbus, for example. It's a lot like building the fan base in MLS. We'll get there, but it'll take years.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2003/story?id=1556367

theyre restricting the sale of tickets in san antonio, so why not restrict qualifier tickets?

 

Because you can't tell which team people support by their credit card billing address.