The haters of Miami as a soccer town were out in full force last week as it was announced that fewer than 6800 tickets had been sold for the USA vs Honduras game to be played at Sun Life Stadium. The game hadn't even been played yet and already they were bashing.
In the end over 21,000 showed up on a wet night to watch the United states defeat Honduras 1-0 thanks to a wonderful goal by Clint Dempsey. Lets not point out that this game was played on Yom Kippur, that there was little promotion for the game, that a basketball event with NBA stars was being played and did I mention torrential rain?
Some mention that tickets were being given away thanks to a groupon special. But what town does not have special ticket sales for games? Sources within the Dolphins organization tell us fewer than 1,000 tickets were sold using the special. That still makes it 20K purchasing tickets by conventional means. Many of those walk up purchases. Imagine if it didn't rain? Other haters will say that 15K of those fans were Honduran nationals. In my opinion the crowd was divided... but, ok let's say they were all Honduran. It's still 15K Hondurans that live in South Florida!
In the end most haters are those who don't even live in South Florida and have no idea what it takes to make soccer a success in this town. The old Fort Lauderdale Strikers back in the 70's and 80's was a success. And the Miami Fusion in 2001 was also turning the corner but was taken from us before time.
What will it take for South Florida to succeed in MLS? An investor(s) with deep pockets that will make each game an event. Who can bring in soccer stars like the old Strikers did with George Best, Teofilo Cubillas, Gerd Muller to name a few. This will attract the soccer snobs of this town.
Over 70K showed up to see Barcelona play at that same stadium a few months back. The fans are here. We just need to give them the quality they are used to and this can be done. Any player in the world would love to play here and that's a fact.
Following are pictures and video of the game this Saturday:
Pictures and video by Uncle Ed
It was a wet night that saw the Strikers and over 7 thousand people witness a heartbreaker of a game. The team looked flat and without a doubt the bunkered down Stars did enough to guarantee they would be the first to hoist the NASL Soccer Bowl.
