When USA and Mexico squared off in a friendly at University of Phoenix Stadium about 16 months ago, the crowd was great and packed the place in a memorable display of soccer passion. When the New York Red Bulls and Chivas de Guadalajara met last night, the scene was slightly less memorable.
Okay, a lot less memorable.
The paltry crowd was treated to a forgettable game, though the Red Bulls gave their fans plenty to feel good about. Despite being short-handed, the Red Bulls thoroughly outplayed a top Mexican club (which to be fair, was also not in season and missing several key players). No matter. The Red Bulls can feel proud about their performance.
SBI West Coast correspondent Odeen Domingo was in the house on Wednesday night and gave us his take on the exhibition and the Red Bulls’ performance:
Major League Soccer in Phoenix .
That’s like heaven in hell.
It must only be the work of the devil, when the clouds are black and the sun is setting and it’s still over 105 degrees. But a reprieve — MLS is in Phoenix. If just for one, glorious night.
The heat is as unbearable as Max Bretos. But on this night, Phoenicians can take solace in watching professional soccer live – the New York Red Bulls vs. Chivas de Guadalajara at the big bedpan, er, University of Phoenix Stadium .
Doing so while drinking beer. We just didn’t know how much. For two buddies and I were about to join — for the first time — others who share our preference of seeing an MLS team in the Valley. We bought tickets to enjoy the match with the resident MLS in Phoenix supporter’s group, MLS Phoenix Rising.
Finally, to be a part of what makes soccer great. Fanatic fandom. To wave the flag of a team that doesn’t exist. To buy pints of beer with the lone objective is to spill them. To chant and sing and for 90 hell-raising minutes.
Our only problem was how to raise hell when hell is already waiting for you outside?
It need not matter. Everything will be better once we begin singing songs stolen from South America , the ones we don’t know the words to.
But then, we walked inside the monstrous stadium and reality hit.
The lower bowl wasn’t even half full. Much of the 15,000 or so in attendance were Chivas fans, which was predictable. What also should have been predictable was the size of the local MLS in Phoenix support group.
Sons of Ben it was not.
“Small” would be an overstatement. “Minute” would be a slap in the face.
The group couldn’t even fill three rows in the section it saved for the match.
There were no flags to wave. No pints to shower in. No chanting. No singing.
No big grins.
No offense to the eight people who were wearing yellow Phoenix Rising shirts or the other 10 who were there to round out the supporter’s group (and the two of whom who are reading this right now), but it falls much short of what is needed to convince the MLS that Phoenix deserves a team.
Which is why this city will never receive one. Well, not in the next decade, at least. It’s laughable to think the MLS was even considering a meeting with a potential Phoenix ownership group. (FYI, the meeting was canceled and has yet to be rescheduled.)
Heck, even the Chivas fans were lame. They tried starting a wave, which failed, and the lone chant heard that night was “Chivas!” clap-clap-clap-clap-clap “Chivas!”
It’s the Americanization of Chivas fans.
To be fair, this game wasn’t marketed the way it should have been, giving the public just a three-week notice instead of the needed three months.
But still, if you really want to follow the footsteps of the Sons of Ben, there should be nothing in the way to stop you.
The best moment and the longest time I actually stood was when the game was over, when I was the lone soul in the stands to recognize American soccer star, Reading F.C. goalkeeper and soul patch-extraordinaire Marcus Hahnemann.
I asked him if he could take a picture with me. He obliged. And then gave me the scoop.
Me: “What’s up Marcus? So when are you going to play for Seattle ?”
MH: “I have one more season at Reading then I’ll announce I agreed to a three-year contract with the Sounders. But don’t tell anyone.”
OK. I’m lying.
Hahnemann really said: “Maybe. Maybe. We’ll see. I have one more season at Reading .”
Phoenix Rising will also need more seasoning to become a factor in American soccer. To their credit, they tried. And if you live in the Valley, you should help them create something special. Check them out at: www.mlsphoenixrising.com.
It has to begin somewhere. To being creating flags. Chants. And those famous grins.
A few notes on the game:
— Both teams were short-handed. And it showed. Both teams seemed uninterested in a disturbing amount of stretches.
— Sinisa Ubiparipovic is no joke. His run into the box and jock-dropping move on a Chivas defender before the assist on the match’s lone goal was impressive. As was his play for much of the night.
— But I also like to stress the pass before the pass. Stammler’s pass to find Ubiparipovic was money.
— Oscar Echverry’s goal wasn’t even his highlight of the night. His footwork when on the ball was fun to watch.
— The Red Bulls had a hard time playing through the midfield in the second half and asked their fullbacks to boom the ball down the touchline to streaking forwards, a strategy that found some success.
— Not sure why Juan Carlos Osorio seems to put a lot of faith in Mike Magee. He didn’t do much besides sail balls into the stands.
bret read what i wrote again…
“A franchise’s success here would almost solely depend on their willingness to get behind the team. And I don’t know if we’d be able to count on that.”
Here we go again an MLS team in Arizona. As a valley resident who lives 10 min from the University of Phoenix Stadium. I say no to an MLS team in the Valley of the sun. Here are a few reasons.
First the weather like others have said it is 100 degreeses and even at night it is 90 or 80 during most of the MLS season.
Second, marketing the marketing would get screwed up. The owners would try to market the game to soccer family and forget about the hispanics. (That is what most of the old indoor soccer teams have done)
Stadium the U of P stadium what a joke a 65,000 seat stadium to play soccer. It is nice and cool in the summer however no atomostphere it would be like the old mls in the football stadiums no thanks
An idea would be move the team to Prescott it is about 1:30 north of the valley it cooler weather in the summer. It is a growing town with nothing to do. They have minor league hockey team that fills a 7,000 arena. The have a successful junior college program.
If the matches are played on Saturday or Sunday people would drive up from the valley to see the matches and you could build an outdoor venue that would be nice.
Also if you name the team Arizona FC some matches could be played in the valley. There are many spring traning baseball stadiums that could be retrofitted to play soccer for a couple of months.
Just some ideas from a soccer fan
I did not go to the match on Wed because I knew they would not play there best players for a friendly. If the match ment something such as a CONCAF Champions League Match then that would have been something.
I wish the Rising Phoenix the best of luck trying to get a team however it will be hard. A fifth major sport in the valley good luck.
Brett – If I understand correctly you are saying that every Red Bulls crowd, except the Beckham game, draws from roughly the same 15,000 people. But there are different people at every match. There are people attending their first match at every game. I was in NY for a while last year and went to 4 games, including the barely attended opener. There were people sitting around me at each game who were attending their first Red Bulls game.
My point is, I don’t know what the total number of DIFFERENT people who attended at least 1 non-Beckham game in 2007 was, but the number may well be closer to 50,000 than 15,000. And I’m sure nearly all of those folks would have gone to the Beckham game.
dan- “evident there’s a large fan base here. But a huge part of that base is Latino. ”
this does not always mean you’ll have a successful turnout…. chicago has a large latino population and yet we barely even tap that market with Blanco…. again, the problem is that they follow the mexican league (for the most part)…. same goes for alot of the soccer population in alot of cities… i cant tell you how many yanks who follow soccer still look down on the MLS and praise the euro leagues…
in short, soccer fans does not necessarily mean large MLS fan base….
The turnout was worse than we thought. It was actually 10,031 or not too far from that.
First off I was at the game and I too thought the Phoenix Rising section was very disappointing. I looked across the field and saw a row of yellow shirts and knew immediately who it was, but there weren’t many of them.
Second I didn’t think the turn-out was too bad. 15, 000 with a 3-week notice and bad marketing. You would think they’d have learned from the Copa PanAmericana.
And as for an MLS team in AZ… it’s evident there’s a large fan base here. But a huge part of that base is Latino. A franchise’s success here would almost solely depend on their willingness to get behind the team. And I don’t know if we’d be able to count on that.
Overall a good experience. Apart from the beer thrown at us from a disgruntled chivas fan on his way out and the suv which thought it’d be funny to continuously honk at us as we got in our car. (Did I mention 2 of my buddies had a Red Bulls jersey on! haha)
William – how dare you say a sport with a continuous play of 5 seconds is considered a long stretch, is boring, where 300lb men where spandex, wait it is boring…. and bordering on homoerotic
@juanito
Oh, and I forgot to mention — don’t call me “Billy.” My mother called me “Billy” once. Once!
@Juanito
Obviously, my suggestion was not serious.
And I am aware that the leagues in South America and Mexico do not follow the European calendar. But, they don’t follow the same calendar as MLS either (otherwise, the MLS teams would be in better form in the preseason tournaments they have with the Central American teams). As to the northern markets, the European leagues almost all have a 4-6 week break from December till late January for cold weather. MLS could do the same. But, I really enjoy seeing those Dutch and German games that are played in snowstorms.
As for NFL and College football, those are vulgar and monumentally boring sports. Sooner or later the rest of the country will catch up and realize that (oh wait, this is the USA i’m talking about. never mind).
Juanito- “While it might be nice to play in Phoenix in the winter, new england, new york, chicago, etc would be terrible.”
pansies 😛
Billy the Terror, not every league in the world follows the August to May calendar. No one in south america does, they don’t in mexico. If MLS were to follow that calendar then they would up against the NFL and college football more than they are now, and that would not be good for business. While it might be nice to play in Phoenix in the winter, new england, new york, chicago, etc would be terrible.
Since MLS refuses to adopt the international calendar followed by every other country (i.e. start in August and play through late April or early May), bringing an MLS team to Phoenix would require games to be played in a city where the temperature rarely drops below 100, even at night, for four or five months a year. That’s absolutely brutal. So, I would suggest that those Phoenix fans who really want a professional team should approach an ownership group with a proposal to join the league in either Saudi Arabia or Kuwait.
Justin O- point being is that the 50k who only attended the Beckham game, 90% of them follow other leagues religiously, and obvioiusly look down on our league… if they indeed continued to follow the league RBNJ could at least muster a 20k average (obviosly not saying they all would attend games, simply saying that if they all attended at least 2 games, then one would think RBNJ could muster a better average, and not rely on 1 game to up their numbers)
and lets not forget that im subtracting the average attendance anyhow…. so all those “1-2 games) were already lumped into the average….. ~15k (without looking up the actual numbers) is the average and that would have left 50k unaccounted for outside the beckham game..
Listen my friend, Mike Magee is terrible. He is not a mif-fielder, he is not a forward. He seems mildly retarded. He needs to work in the pizzeria, delivering pies to the greatest goal scorer in the history of the North America Soccer League.
When was the last time he scored a goal off of something other than a PK? He is not a real soccer player.
Grazie di tutti
Giorgio
Other 50,000+ I meant to say of course.
We expected La Barra Brava. We got La Barra Boring.
(Too bad I only thought of that line when I woke up this morning.)
Brett – I’m sure many of the other 15,000+ who were at NYRB-LA did go to 1 or 2 other games. There must surely be a lot of people who attend 1-2 games a year. ALL of those people probably made sure the Beckham game was one of the games they attended.
Thanks for the match report, great reading the perspective on your end. Best of luck getting that Phoenix franchise set up! Too bad Steve Nash is more interested in Vancouver…
kingsnake- i think what Kpugs was trying to get at is that if they were seriuos about wanting a MLS team that they would organize the fan base(s) down there to make the trip…. sort of a “MLS would look foolish by not giving us a team” statement….
what better way to show a league you are ready for a team then to go above and beyond the ability of others??
personally i find that area to be questionable when it comes to a MLS team… clearly there is MORE then enough soccer fan base in almost any major city, but ONE big problem we tend to see is alot of the fans follow other leagues, and are not willing to jump on board the local league…look at the effect Blanco has on the league… he alone brings in thousands of mexicans to the fire’s games… but where are these fans when he’s not in town?? following their teams in other countries….
same can be said about Beckham…. brought 65k to the Redbulls home game last season…. where were these remaining 50k+ fans at the rest of the season?? following their teams, most likely in europe….
so the amount of people who play soccer in any given area does not mean you will have a hit of a MLS team….
Who are the Red Bulls?
Why? They can’t even get that many in any of the existing MLS stadiums on a regular basis.
That’s a nice piece. I’m surprised the match was so empty; if they were really serious about bringing MLS to Phoenix someone down there would have gone to work trying to get at least 25-30k in the seats.
As for Magee, again I forget exactly which season this was, but he had a stretch of about half a season where he was a very effective midfielder. Before then and since, he was and is completely useless other than he has stamina. Why a)he thinks he should take all free kicks/penalties and b)why his coach and teammates seem not to mind is beyond me. Magee over the ball on a free kick is as good as bonking someone in the stands, as you said.