We arrived well before the 4 PM kickoff to walk around St. Petersburg. We found that it is a driving and not a walking town. Roads and parking lots are everywhere. There are sidewalks, but they are choppy and subservient to the almighty car. Basically the area seems to be geared towards people driving to their boats, parking their cars and then cruising out on the bay. Quite a few restaurants are in the area, but they are spread out with no focal center. This almost reminds me of the soccer stadium itself. It has been repurposed from baseball and is quite adequate, but not great for soccer. But the stadium does offer a nice view of a clustering of yachts and Tampa Bay.
For the DC United stadium commentariat, we drove by Tropicana Field baseball park on the way to the Rowdies stadium. It sits like a massive round grey jelly donut right off the freeway. According to their website "Tropicana Field features the world's second-largest cable-supported domed roof (Georgia Dome is the largest). It's made of six acres of translucent, Teflon-coated fiberglass and it virtually supports itself with 180 miles of cables connected by struts." I am sure it is nice on the inside, but for those that feel the DC United open design doesn't look good, take a look at Tropicana Field!
The game was interesting in that this was the first time the newcomers for DC United all played together. Here are some impressions that may not have been evident from the live stream. Acosta has a long way to go before he is fully integrated into the team, but he clearly has game. He is not afraid to come in for a hard challenge. I am not so sure the duo of Espindola and Acosta as forwards will work. Acosta doesn't seem to be a scorer and Espindola was all over the place as usual. That leaves Acosta up top by himself for much of the game, which is not a good thing for the offense. But I'm sure the combination is a work in progress.
The duo of Halsti and Sarvas (Marcelo on his jersey) was quite good. When one went forward the other one was in support and vice versa. They made it very tough for opposing teams to come through the center. As a result Philadelphia tended to attack down the wings, and that's how they scored the goal. I believe Sean Franklin got beat badly by Chris Pontius (not positive about that) and then the cross was low. It did not really seem to be a very hard cross to deal with, but it resulted in a goal. The players just looked at each other.
Nyarka had a better game as he was more active. He also created the penalty kick. He does give the ball up quite a bit, but then just as you are getting frustrated with him he scores a brilliant nutmeg. DeLeon looked great on the outside, and only so-so in the center. I was surprised when Rolfe came in for Halsti that he was slotted into the right midfield with DeLeon moving to the center. The second stringers were not in long enough to form an impression.
The quote of the game comes just after Boswell hoofs a long ball down the field. With not many fans in the stadium Birnbaum screams out, " Bobby , F---!" Almost everyone in the stadium heard it and laughed. The translation is, "Robert. If you don't mind please, in the future could you possibly consider not lofting the ball so far down the field to no one in particular."
In the last post I forgot to give the lyrics of the Rowdies theme song that is sung before every one of their games. It is a corny song to be sung with bar room gusto.
The Rowdies run here, The Rowdies run there, They kick the ball around.
The Rowdies run here, The Rowdies run there, Then they fall on the ground!
Oh, The Rowdies, The Rowdies, The Rowdies aaa-are... A kick in the grass!
When the Rowdies play soccer, 'tis a sight to behold.
You'll swear they be devils with mag-i-cal toes!
You'll laugh! You'll cheer! You'll leap from your seat,
When they kick with their heads instead of their feet!
You gotta love it.
