Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Spin, spin a song

People weighs in on David Beckham's preference for his "native soil", without ever explaining that he's talking about the artificial surface the Red Bulls play on in New York.

Why didn't Beckham himself get specific and say, "I'm not used to FieldTurf"? Well, he'd already gotten some flack for calling out a corporate partner (Beckham's academies use FieldTurf), in his earlier comments at Toronto. I don't think it's a coincidence that in his blog post, he was careful to be more general.

However, most other players completely agree.

"The worst part of the artificial fields is playing on them when it's hot," said Claudio Suarez. "Your shoes heat up and it burns your feet to step in some places. It's hard on your legs, especially your knees, to run on that surface for a whole game."

Claudio seemed alarmed that the trend in MLS was for more synthetic turf, not less.

"Before I joined the league, I thought that there was only one team with an artificial surface," said Claudio. "Unfortunately, it's more than that. It's tough, but we're professionals and we do our best to adjust."

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