By Mark Vincent Lincir
You can talk all the smack you want during the summer about there I live…because it is miserably hot (dry heat my a%&!). But you do get cheap tee times and the local lakes all to yourself during the week. But one thing most of you don’t get that I do…is close to a dozen MLS teams and their preseason camps in my town!
Real Salt Lake and Major League Soccer new addition Vancouver Whitecaps (great decision to NOT sign Robbie Savage…what waste that would have been!I watched him play last year in England for Derby…he’s terrible) square off Tuesday morning at Grande Sports World in Casa Grande, Arizona (30 minutes south of Phoenix) at 10 am local time.
From there it becomes an almost two-month long playground for all of us who love ditching work to watch midday soccer in the beautiful sunshine on pristine fields (please see picture…I did not roll around naked on these fields either…I knew there was security around somewhere!).
I will be reporting from Grande Sports World where Seattle, Vancouver, RSL, Houston, Portland, New York, Chivas USA and Columbus will be training and also headed up to Reach 11 in North Phoenix to catch some Sporting KC sessions and the Galaxy and then even heading to the Westside Complex on the Westside of town to watch the defending MLS Cup Champion Colorado Rapids get their workout on.
If you have a chance to get out here, come check it out. The players are accessible, the settings are intimate and the weather is absolutely lovely (did I just write that?)…take some time off of work, and watch soccer until you can’t take it anymore.
Keep checking back as I will have stories, interviews, opinions and plenty of photos coming in from all over Arizona MLS spring training every day for the next two months!
I can be reached at [email protected] and make sure to follow us on Twitter and check out our Facebook page!
