Sellout??? Really? No way…are you kidding? Was it really the Red Bulls?
Yes..yes, yes…yes…and yes!
The Red Bulls are winning (maybe I’m getting a bit ahead of myself, but who cares, they actually played in front of many people) and lots of fans turned out to see it.
It’s easy to see why. The club finally has a place to call home that isn’t an embarrassment. Too many seasons of playing in an over-sized stadium with terrible turf somehow did not do-in the club and it was Red Bull who appears to be pulling them out of the depths of “nobody cares clubs” in Major League Soccer.
The stadium looks great…the field is actually grass (you listening Toronto?) and the atmosphere appeared to be electric (that is when the cameraman picked up on it).
By the way, what was up with the cameraman all night? Was he a baseball guy who was bent on continuing to sabotage soccer in the United States by not panning the camera to ever see where the player shooting the ball was? It took a dozen replays from various angles to finally pick up the shot that had the ball and shooter actually in it.
Other than never seeing the ball leave the shooter’s foot on the goals…it was a great night for soccer in New York/New Jersey and for Major League Soccer. The league’s offices are based in New York and it must be nice for league brass to actually have a place to bring potential investors to close to home that isn’t a joke and doesn’t feature a hapless team.
Now, will the Red Bulls live up to their stadium…the beauty is that they HAVE TO…or everyone is gone! There will be no more holding onto players, coaches or administrators that aren’t effective for the sake of doing so.
Great stadium…great backing…great big pressure to perform. Don’t like it? Go home. It’s about time the Red Bulls had a legitimate place to play…not they have to come out and play like they belong in a $250 million dollar facility…game in and game out.
Their 3-1 drubbing of Santos was a good start…but again, it was just that…a start.
QUESTION: Will the new stadium provide the magic the Red Bulls need to succeed? Or will they still stink?
–Mark Vincent Lincir
