First up: sites divulged. So much for the “Gold Cup West Coast, CWC East Coast” theory. Sure, all the stadia are west of the MS River…
Concacaf said Wednesday that BC Place in Vancouver, British Columbia, PayPal Park in San Jose, California, and U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis are the three new venues
Two sites in Houston were picked for the Gold Cup, NRG Stadium and Shell Energy Stadium, along with two sites in the Los Angeles area, SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California.
Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and PayPal Park were chosen from the area south of San Francisco.
Other Gold Cup sites are Arlington, Texas (AT&T Stadium); Austin, Texas (Q2 Stadium); Glendale, Arizona (State Farm Stadium); Las Vegas (Allegiant Stadium); San Diego (Snapdragon Stadium and St. Louis (Citypark).
Oh, and before anyone gets their hopes up for USMNT:
The U.S. sent second-string rosters to the 2021 and '23 Gold Cups to give most Europe-based players time off following their club seasons.
Bump…
OK, USMNT off to a flying start, even without their best XI.
Attendance was dismal even in the small park. 2/3 of the 18K capacity for the USMNT.
Did people not know they were playing?? 75-76 degrees a game time. it was Father’s Day, but hey, Fathers like soccer, too.
Nice that the quarterfinals are two-fer-one affairs. So, let’s check the Glendale, AZ tix prices…
$97.11 for the top level, corner.
$124.02 for lowest level, corner.
Can’t find which winners/runners-up of Groups go to which stadiums. The general method is to keep USA and MEX from meeting before the final, so A (MEX) and B play each other, then winners play in semis, while C and D (USA) play each other, meet in semi’s.
This has the disadvantage of two teams in the same group meeting in the Semi’s instead of the Finals, but CONCACAF prefers a USA-MEX final, and fuck the way others do it.
Again, need to play this in Summer Olympic years, same as Copa and Euros. Not every odd year. Will make it seem more important, and maybe players won’t skip, skip Nations League matches instead.
USMNT over Saudi Arabia.
Again, low attendance. Half-full, 22K Capacity Stadium.
Tix prices too high? Too hot out? Too much competition with CWC? No promo? No-show stars?
Team not very together?
Update on Quarters: wiki has the schedule of Group Placement Results in their bracket, but I don’t think it is finalized. If MEX end up in 2nd (tied with and playing CRC in match 3) and USA win, they will play in the quarterfinal shown there.
It still appears that no one knows where they’re playing next. Must be nice for fans to wait and see.
Pleased to see that Canada’s match tomorrow will be broadcast on a major cable station that I already have and not just a streaming service which I am loathe to pay for.
Seems to be more fan optimism over the Canadian team than the US team? But maybe Canadians are just basically more optimistic than Americans.
Weird call: I think because the stadium was so quiet it seems like there was a whistle that was not from the officials. There was also a likely handball in the interim.
There was also a called back goal immediately afterwards, but there was a player clearly offside on that one.
It was a very weird game. Canada didn’t serve a point out of it. We were awful.
We really miss Eustaquio, who opted to play for Porto in the Club competition, and Davies, who probably would have played for Bayern if he wasn’t injured.
On Sunday, the USMNT took multiple haymakers to the noggin. Granted, that’s the norm in Concacaf, but in this match the U.S. stayed on its feet long enough to deliver the final blow, with Damion Downs converting the home side’s final attempt in the penalty shootout to win the tiebreaker 4-3 after extra time finished 2-2.
No, there was no “extra time.” Went straight to kicks.