Football markings on our beloved soccer fields: Oh, make the bad man stop

Or Gillette Stadium in New England or any other sinister excuse for a soccer stadium that, through the years, has forced me and others to watch the beautiful game against a backdrop of those dizzying, horrible football markings.

Essential disclaimer: I have absolutely nothing against American football. I just don't want to see the distinctive and dstracting yard lines, hash marks, logos and end zone designs during a soccer game. It sends me to my bad place and makes me want to hurt kittens and puppy dogs. Nor do I care for the omnipresent reminder that soccer and MLS are mere lowly "renters," not "owners," and therefore powerless and deemed unworthy in the class system of sports.

As I settled in for my weekly breakneck-paced marathon of MLS match monitoring -- eight matches in Round 26, seven of them between tonight and tomorrow -- it dawned on me that my time of watching contests at Giants Stadium is, mercifully, almost done. Just two more matches at that football-lined pit, and it will be taken out behind the barn and shot in the head as an MLS venue.

I don't know what soccer fans did to deserve 14 years of watching contests there -- but believe us oh dear, sweet, compassionate and merciful God, we’re sorry.

Red Bull Arenawill be on-line and all that next year, as the New York side finally moves into its crackerjack grounds in nearby Harrison. About. Freakin. Time.

On the surface, it's just a kick in the head to watch soccer matches on top of football lines. It utterly corrupts the aesthetics of the game. It's like seeing a beautiful woman marginalize her own fantastic looks with splotchy, caked on makeup and cloggy shoes, or a handsome man wearing ill-fitting pants and a mustard-stained Dokken t-shirt.

Not only are the aesthetics all FUBAR, but football lines in soccer matches are nearly always linked with artificial turf, another scourge of the game. When artificial turf is done right, as it can be these days, its negative effects are diminished, at least. So games at BMO in Toronto aren't hideous, for example, just not ideal. Same with matches at Gillette before they put down football lines for the fall. But as it’s football season, we're all effed now if we want to see something worth watching from the Boston area.

(And none of this is even mentioning all the well-documented financial issues and the attendance implications attached to playing in such unsuitable venues.)

But take heart, ye fellow supporters, the situation is slowly improving. We get Red Bull Arena next year, plus the new grounds being riveted as we speak in Philly.

And today comes the absolutely brilliant news out of Toronto that officials at TFC believe they'll have the Reds playing on real grass next year. That's the best news I've heard since word of a Red Dawn remake. "Wolverines!"

In sum, 2010 will dawn with one major, lingering problem in terms of MLS viewership (Gillette Stadium) and a couple of problem children of a lesser degree. Houston needs to get out of that band box in that sketchy neighborhood (Robertson Stadium, which is grass but way too small and is sometimes adorned with football lines) and comically unsuitable CommunityAmerica Ballpark in Kansas City.

Both teams are moving forward with stadium plans, although ground breaking is hardly imminent in either case.