Houston, we have a soccer team!: A crowd of over 25,000 sees the debut of MLS team Houston Dynamo defeat the Colorado Rapids 5-2 on 4 goals from the smilin' Hawaiian, Brian Ching. Long lines in traffic and concession stands can't dampen the feeling for supporters as Houston finally gets a professional soccer team. Game on!
posted by Texan_lost_in_NY to soccer at 01:47 PM - 9 comments
Same thing xmutex said (save replace Seattle with Atlanta).
posted by trox at 04:25 PM on April 03, 2006
That's a really impressive attendance, and it's good to see the sport get a foothold in North America... but Houston Hotspur would just sound a lot cooler.
posted by afx237vi at 04:47 PM on April 03, 2006
As a earthquake fan (RIP) , I am happy to see the reception that Houston gave my dearly departed team . To bad our incompetent city council and mayor had there head stuck so far up there asses trying to get a ball park for the Athletics that they let this great team go. Kick ass and take numbers ! GO DYNAMO
posted by trrron at 06:28 PM on April 03, 2006
Hopefully they can continue to pull those numbers in. When the WUSA first started, Atlanta was pulling in those kind of numbers for a few games, but it just steadily dwindled until they were finally getting less than 10,000 or so towards the end. I'm with trox. I would get season tickets to an Atlanta MLS team in a heartbeat. The league has come so far in the last 10 years and is now even pleasing to the eye sometimes. The players we have are leaps and bounds above where they were even just 3 years ago (who else remembers Andrew Shue playing with the Galaxy). I've tried to watch the Silverbacks play, but the football just isn't attractive enough to justify spending time and money to go see.
posted by Ricardo at 08:48 PM on April 03, 2006
I was at the game and it was a great feeling to finally have our own team...it did help that we won and it was a great game. How about that bicycle kick from Moreno? Goal of the year! Hopefully our Dynamo guys get used to the humidity quick!! Cha Ching! Go Dynamo!
posted by m_davenport at 09:00 PM on April 03, 2006
Thats nice for Houston...but what about San Jose?
posted by StarFucker at 09:51 PM on April 03, 2006
San Jose got screwed by AEG and MLS, and so m_davenport and Texan you can have the Dimmies; I'm done with the league. Whatever mistakes the San Jose city politicians made, there was plenty of fan support here--including rallies and city council meeting attendance--and other municipalities besides San Jose who were willing to work on providing a new home. The Quakes had the fourth best attendance in MLS in 2005 and despite the uncertainty got indications for increased season ticket sales in 2006. Further, the team claimed it couldn't stay one more season in Spartan Stadium and then moved to a city where (at the time the deal was signed) they have to play three years in a similar college-share setup with no contract for a permanent soccer-specific stadium. Ching is my favorite American player, though, and I hope he keeps scoring so Bruce Arena has no choice but to include him in the squad for Germany, esepcially ahead of Josh Wolff.
posted by billsaysthis at 03:39 PM on April 04, 2006
surprisingly my freind thought the game was more fun than baseball, absketball or football team here in houston. maybe this mls thing is pretty cool
posted by Barry-from-H-town at 11:03 PM on April 04, 2006
That's really cool. I wish all MLS teams would have a similar recpetion, and I wish Seattle would get a MLS team.
posted by xmutex at 03:47 PM on April 03, 2006