Big Apple, meet Red Bull Stadium. It's rail-accessible, making it a true N.Y. sports stadium. The Meadowlands and related traffic/tolls/pain-in-the-ass can go to hell.
From today's N.Y. Times:
The new Red Bull Arena glitters in an industrial wasteland just east of Newark, not far from Manhattan. I was thinking about trains I have taken to other matches — Inchon, outside Seoul, South Korea; Saitama, outside Tokyo; West Ham and Arsenal and Chelsea in London; the cute little trolley curving through Milan to San Siro.
On a gorgeous afternoon, I could walk from my house on Long Island to a train, to another train, then walk to a soccer stadium. No bridges. No tunnels. No tolls. No traffic. A new age.
Soccer is the pulsing heart of world sport; now it is finally connected to the center of the universe. The only slight flaw has been removed. New York is finally perfect.
Now if only the Red Bulls weren't quite so awful. They finished dead last in the entire MLS last season, with a 5-19-6 record, a far cry from their impressive run to the MLS Cup in 2008.
Neither the Red Bulls nor their previous incarnation, the MetroStars, has ever won an MLS Cup or a U.S. Open Cup, despite being a founding club of MLS in 1996.
DC UNITED for LIFE!
ReplyDeleteHow can I actually support a I team called the Red Bulls? Don't get me wrong, I love everything New York sports (except for the Yankees). But the Red Bulls. I don't want to support an energy drink!
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I do want to check out the new stadium and get really really wasted watching soccer!
Aren't they collectively the Red Bull, the way Stanford is the Cardinal?
ReplyDeleteI can't stand that the team is named after a drink. I also can't stand Alexi Lalas.
But, I'll be up for a game this summer!
I can't wait until the United have their own perfect soccer-only stadium... in St. Louis.
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