Soccer Was Played At Busch Stadium

Soccer happened last night @ Busch Stadium. 

Real soccer. No juice boxes. No orange slices. Questionable body positions:

Some observations in no particular order:

1) St. Louis brought the heat. In the last 10 minutes.

Wasn't a rowdy crowd. But it was a crowd. And by the last 10 minutes of the game, everyone had kind of picked a side and started rooting for, well, something. Many didn't know what. But everyone stopped staring and started participating. 

2) Someone was impressed, though.

Don't know who. Don't know the end goal of this exhibition other than to sell a ton of stuff and make some big $$$ for the Cardinals when their main attraction is on a road trip.

But SOMEONE had to be impressed at how St. Louis showed up to a soccer game.

3) The scrubs played, but the stars played too.

Tip of the cap to the teams involved for having all the stars at least start the game. I was under the false impression that this was going to be a 3rd string coming out party. 

4) We're getting sponsors on game jerseys real soon. 

I don't know how much Samsung pays to sponsor the Chelsea kits, but it do know that they can justify spending a TON on it because I must have seen their logo 10,000 times last night. And that's not counting the game. 

I know that the NFL has done practice jerseys. But that is a drop in the bucket. Professional owners can't stay away from this pending pile of money much longer. 

5) Yes. Blaming injuries and bad play from field conditions will happen on this site.

We did it after the Dave Matthews concert. We did it after the U2 concert. And we really did it after The Eagles concert. Because, you know…

6) Busch Stadium? Not built like a soccer stadium.

No shit, right? But I'm not talking about the field, but more the entrance and exit of fans into the stadium. One of the big reasons soccer has been getting increased exposure on US TV is the ability to finish a game in 2 hours. Prompt. 

But when you get 45K people coming in and heading out all at the same time, the exit points become choke points. During baseball, people tend to arrive and leave in waves. 

Really, that was the only thing you could complain about. St. Louis and the Cardinals put on a class event and fans from all over came to support it. 

Well done, city.