Best chance is CR the first wknd in June. Otherwise, US fans might get outnumbered on a weeknight in a large venue. No Mex, no Guat--that's asking for trouble and serious outnumbering. Panama will be during the Pats season. I keep thinking T&T going to the HDC and Panama to Dallas. CR just seems the most likely.
god, after being there for us v hon '01....there's a million and one reasons why the usoc should never put games here (mainly due to the city employees running the asylum over there). i hope this 'new reason' finally makes it come true.
The 2001 Jamaica game was during the Pats season, too -- they'd played 4-5 NFL games on that grass already. Another fall qualifier in Foxboro is more than plausible.
fwiw, tom brady was asked to make comments about the field on d+c a couple days ago. when asked about resodding....he started off by saying basically there's 'no chance in heck' that thing gets resodded this season (well, until the league 'makes them' during playoffs). the way he couched it certainly made me feel like he knew something. either not very confident about the groundskeepers and/or not confident about the krafts spending $ to do it. a couple sentences later he somewhat tempered it by saying they're used to playing this bad surface and that they somewhat 'like it'. it was interesting. maybe my own biases regarding kraft as an overall cheapskate let me to certain conclusions.....but, tom's tone and words led me to believe he sorta knows what's going on over there.
This same discussion was going on with the Pats people at the end of last season as well. They like the field well chewed up. What they want and what we need for a reasonable playing surface are miles apart. I'm betting they will need to resod before next season. But the problem under discussion was what if we were scheduled to play a WCC after a rain drenched MLS match? I guess they could play but it sure wouldn't be soccer as we know it Since we now have them in pointyball season best they stick to using SSS.
What was the capacity of Foxboro Stadium? USMNT at Foxboro Stadium 57,407 4/20/97 WCQ vs Mexico 53,193 11/16/97 WCQ vs El Salvador 51,273 6/1/91 vs Ireland 40,483 10/7/01 WCQ vs Jamaica 37,652 6/9/93 vs England 31,211 6/20/01 WCQ vs Trinidad & Tobago 25,332 6/9/96 vs Ireland 22,578 6/11/95 vs Nigeria 18,334 8/16/00 WCQ vs Barbados 16,319 6/6/00 vs Ireland USWNT at Foxboro Stadium 50,484 6/27/99 WWC vs North Korea 35,462 9/12/98 vs Mexico 30,564 9/4/99 vs Ireland 20,123 7/3/00 vs Brazil 16,386 6/27/00 vs Brazil
This one was an oversell on a reconfigured Foxboro for the season opener. With the corner seats out, the capacity was lower than the NFL capacity. I've seen the NFL capacity reported as 60,293. IIRC, the "Soccer Capacity" was 24,871, but that number never had any relationship to anything.
I've heard that MLS will play a 32-game schedule next year, so for season-ticket holders, that's 16 home games, 1 playoff game, and 3 additional games in the package. I'm guessing a Gold Cup game, the All Star game we almost got in 2004, and a WC qualifier. Or maybe I'm just dreaming....
Jeremy, I think you're thinking of El Rey Mexican Grill right across the street from Invesco. If not, I stand corrected. I've never been to Seventh and Water but always appreciate good Mexican food so I'll go check it out. Also, Denver for Mexico? NO. You would have a somewhat friendlier LA Coliseum, with not as many bottles of whatever being thrown at US fans. Crowd would be about 72K - 3K in favor of Mexico.
This is the same 'cheapskate' who, if I remember correctly, funded that stadium with mainly his own money? If you were to invest into say a team based professional bowling league, or into something else that was somewhat of a new idea in this country, you would be pretty relucatant as well to keep investing more and more money into something that just drained on your assets.
I don't see how. It's not owned by an MLS owner, it's got FieldTurf, and it has permanent football lines. I'd bet on it's being in Columbus again. A large capacity isn't important. This is a World Cup qualifier, not some stupid friendly to pay the bills. And in fact, Columbus' small capacity would be better in that it would be easier for the USSF to sell the place out without too many opposing fans' getting tickets.
Belichick prefers it ripped up. Anything that makes your home field different and gives you an edge in preparing for it makes for additional home field advantage. If Belichick had his way, the field would always be a mess. But last year, the NFL made them fix it up after a point. I'm sure they'll do the same again this year. Talking about lousy fields, I've always felt that, in general, players developed in other countries are MUCH better on bad fields. If you look at what kids play on growing up around the world compared to what kids in the US play on, it's night and day. Even in the UK, the kids play on dirt or some kind of hard-packed surface.
That may be right, I yp.yahooed for mexican restaurants and grabbed the nearest one because I couldn't remember the name. Denver has hosted a game against Mexico before...US win on a Mathis goal in a friendly before 48,476, predominantly Mexican partisans. http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/soccer/world/2002/world_cup/news/2002/04/03/mexico_us_ap/ For some reason, everything I type this week is wrong, so feel free to fact check this as well. I'll let you know when I seem to be getting everything right again.
I seem to recall seeing something that said something to the effect, that the U.S. sites for the hexagonal will largely influenced by the opinion of Bruce Arena.
Othen than Portland (and that was back in WCQ for 98), none of these cities has hosted a qualifier in the Hex in recent memory. So that should tell ya something ...
FYI ... the field is being resodded right now, and should be all set in time for the next Pats game. From what I understand, this is done by the Pats, not NFL mandated. This time.
Hopefully they'll do this again after the last game of the season as well to benefit that other team that plays at Gillette Stadium. Somehow, this wasn't done a few years back and the field resembled the old Navy bombing range on Vieques.
Houston's hosted Mexico qualifiers this year (not in the hex, so I'm not contradicting you), however, they all have hosted large friendlies. I just don't buy the idea that US Soccer is somehow tied to playing home qualifiers in stadiums owned by MLS investor/operators. US Soccer and MLS are independent entities, and USS has shown previously that their major concerns are maximizing revenue and making sure they get to travel somewhere far from Soccer House. Will LA get at least one game? Very likely Will Columbus get at least one game? Probably Will Frisco get a game? I assume so, if their stadium is ready. That still leaves three games, and I think that there are plenty of options out there. Given that DC is going to be a baseball stadium pretty much the entire year, I think Salt Lake, Denver, and maybe KC and Seattle all have fair chances of picking up a hex game this year. Certainly no better or worse than New England.
From what I'm hearing, some folks at the USSF are underwhelmed with the recent crowds in Columbus, and Crew Stadium may get a pass this year. As long as Sunil is working for the Revs, I can't see you guys getting shut out - unless, of course, you're a major site for the Gold Cup. Either way, you guys should get plenty of international action.
But why bother when most of the revenues are going into the pockets of the University of Utah? Incidentally, Reliant Stadium in Houston usually has a grass field. However, it is in the form of the grassy tiles similar to the ones that used to be at the Swamp, and those tiles are removed from January to July to recover and regenerate, and to leave the stadium floor bare for the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo to use for a couple of weeks in March. (That might sound amusing, but the rodeo is a big yearly deal in Houston. In fact, the rodeo helped finance Reliant Stadium's construction.) Because of this, the Houston Texans apparently felt that it was more cost effective to lay down a temporary grass field than to move the tiles back in for the USA-Mexico game.
If it makes you feel better, I'm happy to cede the crown of "firsthand knowledge of places the US national team does not ever play" to you Dustin.
*Please take this with a grain of salt* Yesterday, I called the Revolution ticket office because Im thinking about getting season tix again and while I was chatting with the Rep, World Cup Qualifiers came up and he said the Revolution are working on getting 2 qualifiers. This may mean nothing as he may have been trying to sell me on the value of the season tickets or perhaps he's in the know... He said he did not know which games. However one thing to consider is that Foxboro has hosted 2 games in the last 2 Hex Cycles: 1997: Mexico El Salvador 2001: T&T Jamaica For supporters of the Kraft Conspiracy Theory, this could add further support for your argument.
As long as Sunil Gulati works for Revs and serves on the USSF, I don't think you'll have to worry about going too long between MNT games. I would expect to see the Gold Cup return to Foxboro this summer at the very least.