Needless to say its effin cold here in uppermidwest flyover territory today. The only people that would have an advantage in this would be those that play in it regularly, which is nobody. I just walked out my door, and the north wind is just next level. Its gotta be -25 wind chill when it gusts. Its cold enough my forklift froze up. That'll sit still til Friday now.
I think the main issue with the NFL is that you have to submit the sites to FIFA/CONCACAF way in advance (and the regulations specify a certain amount of days that are required). At that point I believe no NFL team had been eliminated and so they couldn't guarantee the stadium could be available. I don't know the work that needs to go into changing a field and getting it ready from football to soccer, but I'm presuming it would have taken longer than 3 days. Though I do hear your point that Jackonsville was pretty clearly terrible early in the NFL season and was unlikely to mount any sort of resurgence. We've even played a qualifier there in the past. I still don't think they can put a game at a site they can't guarantee will be one hundred percent available, even if the chances are small that it won't be. The list of NFL stadiums with grass fields are Las Vegas, Kansas City, Denver, DC, Cleveland, Miami, Pittsburgh, Green Bay, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Chicago, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, and Jacksonville. I presume that pretty much all of them have big enough field dimensions for soccer (though Green Bay notably does not), and we've played qualifiers in the Hex era at the following NFL stadiums: DC (at RFK), KC, Foxborough (when it used to be grass), Nashville, Chicago, Tampa, Seattle (on temporary grass), and Jacksonville. As to the turf question, it's been reported they would have played in Portland, though there's been no confirmation as to whether or not they would have tried to put in a temporary grass field or not. The players have a CBA that basically mandates they have to play all their home games on grass, though they may have been willing to waive that provision in order to reduce travel times. NFL availability aside playing on turf would have opened up Atlanta, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Detroit, New Orleans, and US Bank in Minnesota. MLS wise it doesn't even really open up a ton in terms of stadiums (New England which is too cold, Portland and Seattle which are probably too far west, and Atlanta which we just mentioned). With all that said, I'm pretty sure they could have played this game in Orlando on a grass field in good whether and still had a pretty decent pro-US crowd.
Yeah I forgot a bunch of the outdoor NFL stadiums are still turf. Jacksonville seems like it would have been the best option for this game....just looked it up and Toronto to Jacksonville is literally a 6 minute longer flight than to Minneapolis. After the game, Jacksonville to London is about 30 minutes longer flight time than Minneapolis to London (assuming they'll have USSF charter for the European based guys again). As far as getting the field ready, 3 days seems like plenty (especially since the AFC game was the earlier of the 2) especially if you're willing to live with the possibility of having visible American football lines...and again this would have only even come in to play if the Jaguars, who were 2-8 at the time the venue was announced (Nov 24), had rallied to not only make the playoffs (as a minimum 6 seed) but progress to the AFC championship and then another team with an even lower playoff seed had made it as their opponent. Just dumb on every level to put this game in Minnesota without having the contingency plan for US Bank Stadium in place.
I'm not an expert of what it takes to have the field ready, so I have no idea if 3 days is enough. I agree that Jacksonville made the most sense as far as NFL stadiums. But if you are going to play in Jacksonville, you might as well just do it in Orlando.
There have been plenty of MLS games played on grass with less than 3 days turnover after an NFL game, but when you do that, you're accepting playing on a torn-up surface with very visible NFL lines.
Yeah, the lines suck, but I'm more worried about the field quality. If we were going to pick somewhere instead of Minnesota, I'd want it to be somewhere with a pristine field.
Well they don't seem to have an issue playing in the same place twice. But also the Panamanian diaspora in the US is quite small and mostly concentrated in New York and Florida. I've suggested Houston for ease of travel to Mexico and Costa Rica, but we could play that game a ton of places and as long as we aren't in Miami or New York City, we'd be almost certain to have a very pro-US crowd.
McKennie and Weah… Weston McKennie shared a graphic on his Instagram under an hour ago citing the record low temperatures tonight.The players will rattle off their required lines to the press, but they can’t be happy about playing in this weather when it isn’t even necessary to do so. pic.twitter.com/mpzx9v92rf— MLS Buzz (@MLS_Buzz) February 2, 2022 Check out Weah’s (open to see his take on it) pic.twitter.com/qW0FExa85c— pulisic’s left foot (@_alexrendon) February 2, 2022
Buba López en este momento está siendo tratado con suero en el vestuario debido a una hipotermia. Quioto también se complicó pero ya se encuentra estable. Ambos jugadores de la selección de Honduras salieron de cambio en el medio tiempo. Esto no puede ser.— Oscar Funes (@chacofunesjr) February 3, 2022 Buba López is currently being treated with serum in the locker room due to hypothermia. Quioto was also complicated but is already stable. Both players from the Honduran national team came off the bench at halftime. This can not be. Honduras GK was subbed at halftime due to being treated for hypothermia. https://t.co/qovnKO8Brq— Tom Bogert (@tombogert) February 3, 2022 Buba López - Honduras GK - was treated with an IV at halftime due to hypothermia https://t.co/oeTOhwbD9b— Nico Cantor (@Nicocantor1) February 3, 2022
Sucks for Honduras that they probably won’t get to host us for another seven years. Plenty of time to cook up some elaborate revenge though.
Knowing Honduras, it'll be midday at 100 or more degrees Fahrenheit with 100% or higher humidity, and all that stuff with trying to keep the players awake at night with excessive noise at the hotel. Standard Central American gamesmanship.
Yes because a team that just hosted a home game in Minnesota in mid-winter is never guilty of gamesmanship.
I feel like Columbus ended up working out fine, but let's not do that again ever. I felt particularly bad for Matt Turner who was just running back and forth to stay warm pic.twitter.com/zPKlszU5rl https://t.co/6a4nqQJyb0— Ives Galarcep (@SoccerByIves) February 3, 2022 The players were very much not into playing in weather this cold, and if I were them I'd push for language in their next CBA to make sure they never have to.
I mean I said since the very beginning I thought they were overthinking by having the game in Minnesota and that it added a level of variance to the game that we didn't need. Where we've disagreed is when it comes to alternative sites and the reasons why they picked St. Paul in particular.
Puhtato, Pohtato...when you shoot down virtually every other alternative, including ones they themselves said were viable (like Orlando, or Portland initially), then you're effectively crafting a defense for their decision. It's like the pundits who say they're against a war, then manufacture consent for it by promoting the false narratives supporting it.
I feel like I was mostly ok with Orlando for Honduras all along, my question was more where would we play El Salvador. Columbus worked out fine, and my best alternative pick would probably have been Austin, but there was definitely a risk there of not having a great pro-US crowd. Portland is just a question of their willingness to play on turf, which they've historically not been wiling to, but they may have been willing to do so this time. But no need to belabor the point further as I think we're both in agreement that Orlando is fine for the Panama game and that St. Paul in January was not a good idea.
Giving our own players frostbite to own the already eliminated Hondurans… Chris Richards took this video of Reggie Cannon after the USMNT win against Honduras ...🥴🥴🥴 pic.twitter.com/PXAtjWV48g— USMNT Only (@usmntonly) February 3, 2022
cool cool cool “How cold was it last night?” My camera literally froze. #USAvHON pic.twitter.com/rmvxH4suFu— Ashley Orellana (@AshleyMOrellana) February 3, 2022
I didn't like the cold weather spots (at least to attend) so I passed on this round but I think half the country would have been a poor choice yesterday evening. There was rain and dipping temperatures (45 at 4:00 and dipping down to 22 for a low and feezing rain changing to snow around noon) in Dallas and it seemed the front went from Baja California to Maine when I was looking with rain/sleet-freezing rain and snow in varying places. Let's all blame FIFA for the ridiculous winter WC which was bid as a summer WC but switched which has the whole soccer calendar messed up. Between trying to have a home crowd, trying to cut down on flying for those coming from Europe and the three games in a window and finding available fields that are heated or meet the other requirements the FED was in a bad spot. probably should have gone warmer weather and tried to somehow sell to supporter's through some finagled way. Sucks being one of the few places in the world where almost foreign national teams you play in the hex/ocho have so many fans. I have witnessed plenty of shenanigans through the years on the road though so if they don't want any more cold each team needs to make a deal not to host in places our players get heat stroke / exhaustion. Detent?
People are going to be even more pissed when they realize what having a one week break in between league player and WC beginning does to player availability due to injuries. A basic knock in the league could easily cause stars to miss the entire World Cup (whereas before they’d have had 6 weeks to heal up).
Credit to the USMNT players for not saying it before the game, but it’s clear from their social posts and what I’ve heard today that they didn’t like the extreme weather conditions that US Soccer chose either and don’t want to do anything like that in the future.— Subscribe to GrantWahl.com (@GrantWahl) February 4, 2022