I hung out with the SI boys after the Galaxy game; Luis, Jonah Freedman, Grant Wahl and I went to a nearby Chili's after we'd filed our respective stories. Arash Markazi sat with us during the match, but disappeared soon after the game. We were sure he'd been invited to one of the cool parties he always seems to get into.
Grant and Luis were assigned to the main press box, but Jonah and I didn't make that cut. We were out in the open air auxilery box, where the Internet connection wasn't working and the sun was right in our eyes.
On the plus side, we could hear the Riot Squad clearly throughout the match, so we shared with Luis and Grant our favorite chants of the day.
Jonah's fave, to the Guantanamera tune: "You're just a suburb of Fulham! Suburb of Fulham! You're just a suburb of Fulham!"
My fave didn't have a particular tune, but was chanted enthusiastically towards the match's finale. "You're not as good as Tigres! You're not as good as Tigres!"
6 comments:
AC,
Tell Markazi to get his facts straight. Here is what he says about the attendance:
"Every seat and every inch of the grass pavilion overlooking the stadium is full. They're projecting at least 27,000 fans. The Galaxy typically averages less than half that number." (http://www.fannation.com/blogs/post/45751)
The average attendance so far this year is 22,586. I realize that probably includes a lot of no-shows who are waiting for Beckham but the Galaxy has traditionally led the league in attendance, even at the smaller HDC:
2006: 20,814
2005: 24,204
2004: 23,809
2003: 21,983
I'm not terribly sophisticated when it comes to math but I believe these figures all are well over half of capacity.
Yeah, I once suckered Dylan Hernandez of the San Jose Mercury News into a bet. He was going on about how he didn't think MLS would make it long-term, and I said, "Would you say an MLS team has made it if it averages more than 20,000 in every home match?"
He said, "If any MLS team does that, then I'd say the league is safe and has a shot."
I told him that the Galaxy average for 2005 (We were talking last year) was nearly 25,000, even with the team not playing that well much of the time.
He looked surprised, but then saved himself, "You can't trust these MLS numbers."
I think Arash looked at the league average, which, truth be told, is still wrong, because the league average is around 15,000, which is in no way less than half.
You can comment in Arash's blog if you like - I don't know when I'll see him again. He's getting killed for a Wayne Bridge error by Chelsea fans anyway.
Sorry I missed the Chili's soirée. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to blog on my sidekick from the aux box again. Aside from the severe thumb pain, it's kind of hard to check facts when you're texting stream of consciousness. I knew Bridge wasn't playing, not sure how his name slipped in although I was exaggerating on the average attendance. You have to admit though that those figures are skewed. There's a difference between paid attendance and actual attendance. I mean there was no way 15,349 showed up for Tuesday's games.
I'm just amazed you blogged from your phone. I've been trying to figure out how to blog from my blackberry and finally quit trying.
With the attendance, the official attendance for the US-Guatemala Gold Cup game was somewhere around 22,000, and it looked like a packed house that night. They've had some games since where the attendance was right around there and there's no f-in way those crowds compared to the US-Guatemala crowd, in terms of size.
It'll be interesting to see the crowd for Pachuca on Tuesday.
I actually think your blog was the best of the minute-by-minute ones, Arash. You had a lot more of the atmosphere details than anyone, and you gave the Galaxy props on some of their decent play - some other outlets, man, it was killing them to give the Galaxy any credit. I think that they were unhappy when Mourinho said it was a difficult game.
Hee! Chelsea clearly is not as good as Tigres.
I mean, Tigres owned the Korean team and the L.A. team during the World BCS Championship Super Bowl Series of Soccer in ways that Chelsea couldn't even begin to hope.
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