Golazo!

A world football (soccer) blog

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These are the American ten stadiums that will be used as venues for the CONMEBOL Copa America Centenario 2016. They are:

Santa Monica, California: Levi’s Stadium- 68,500 capacity

Chicago, Ilinois: Soldier Field- 61,500 capacity

Foxborough, Massachusetts: Gilette Stadium- 68,756 capacity

Houston, Texas: NRG Stadium (formerly Reliant Stadium)- 71,500 capacity

East Rutherford, New Jersey: Metlife Stadium- 82,566 capacity

Orlando, Florida: Orlando Citrus Bowl Stadium- 70,000 capacity

Pasadena, California: Rose Bowl Stadium- 92,542 capacity

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Lincoln Financial Field- 69,176 capacity

Glendale, Arizona: University of Phoenix Stadium- 63,400 capacity

Seattle, Washington: CenturyLink field- 67,000 capacity

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Louis Van Gaal rests after EPL fixture against Arsenal...

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Hudson River Rivalry

Many American soccer fans wonder why New York City Football Club (better known as NYCFC) are so popular in the Big Apple right now. New York already had a team, the New York Red Bulls, which just made the Eastern Conference finals. The Red Bulls are one of the founding franchises of Major League Soccer (the U.S./ Canadian first division) after being started in the 1996 MLS season. They also beat NYCFC in all three of their meetings in the 2015 season. New York Red Bulls play in a state of the art soccer-specific stadium just across the Hudson River in New Jersey, which, in my opinion, is the most European-like stadium in America, versus New York City’s temporary home, the iconic Yankee Stadium, built for baseball, which has a small pitch and bad views. Why don’t they follow the reborn New York Cosmos, who beat them in the U.S. Open cup, and won the North American Soccer League (the second division) this season? The Cosmos are planning to build their new stadium long before NYCFC does. And although New York’s newest soccer team play in a baseball stadium and signed three semi-retired players (both of which are things “more traditional” European soccer fans hate), the reason for their packed home games is probably the most European of all: parochialism. London, Europe’s most populous city, plays host to an astonishing fourteen professional clubs, five of which play in the Barclays Premier League (first division) and nine of which play in the Football League (all other divisions). How do these teams draw any fans when soccer fans have another team that might be much better? The answer lies in the many neighborhoods of London. What I mean is this: Fulham F.C. play their home matches in the Fulham neighborhood, Tottenham Hotspur play in Tottenham. A.F.C. Wimbledon play in Wimbledon, (Chelsea play in Fulham, which might be why many people hate them right now, or it could be because they have a foreign owner, used to have Jose Mourinho as their coach, and the constant signing of non-English players) and so on.

Although New York doesn’t have seven teams, the Red Bulls and NYCFC both represent two groups of people in the Tri-State area, the people from the surrounding areas, such as New Jersey, or Conneticut, support the Red Bulls, while the people who live inside NYC follow New York City FC. These different sects of people support these clubs because the club they support relates the most to themselves, their family, and their community.