I absolutely cannot abide soccer fields of insufficient width or quality. Call me a soccer geek or soccer nerd or whatever, but it offends my 32-paneled sensibilities.
So I cannot say that I’m totally on board with these touring summer friendlies left to suffer temporary surfaces, which are adequate at their very best, downright dreadful and occasionally dangerous at their worst.
And that thing at Wrigley Field yesterday, a 62-yard-wide (they say … it may not have even stretched that far) was ridiculous. To bring a world class team like Roma over and ask them to play on a tiny field, and one that’s choppy due to the baseball configuration, is like asking an renowned artist to paint using his toes.
All that said …
I cannot get past being a little excited about soccer at Wrigley Field. I don’t feel good about it … but just can’t help it. I feel the same way about Fenway Park in Boston, another historic ground that will soon be the facility of choice for a globally branded soccer team. (For a day, that is.)
Soccer in this country does have history, something that’s too easily forgotten at times.
But it doesn’t have the deep and rich historical attachments that baseball enjoys. So, when our game is linked to that history, to the neighborhoods, to the culture, to the personalities, to the legends and the days and nights etched right into all that brick and mortar greatness, I have to say that does ring the bell of cool or me.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels that way.
Check out some good work yesterday from CSN Chicago’s JJ Stankevitz, who shows us some of those cultural connections as he talks to Michael Bradley. And be sure to see the photo gallery, too.