As of this morning, there were about 7,000 tickets sold for tonight’s the U.S. Men’s National Team’s friendly against Colombia in Philadelphia.
U.S. Men’s National Team: Disappointing Crowd In Philadelphia
The size of the crowd is disappointing, to be sure, but the fact that a good portion of those fans will be cheering for the visitors is also unfortunate.
For whatever reason, the USMNT has decided to limit its friendlies -- and most of their international competitions -- to the East Coast, Midwest and Texas. The main thing those three areas have in common is immigrant populations -- of many different nationalities -- that help boost the attendance figures.
In a country as big as the United States, it makes no sense to have a national stadium. As such, it seems to make sense to move the games around as much as possible. California probably deserves more games if for no other reason than so many of the USMNT players have ties there. The Pacific Northwest has shown a willingness to support club soccer like no other region in the country.
Meanwhile, we have games in Chicago where people cheering on Poland are in nearly equal numbers to those cheering on the Stars and Stripes and in Philadelphia we have a crowd so small that no MLS team would be proud of it. It just seems like there should be a better way.
As for the match itself, it looks like Bob Bradley is continuing to tinker with his lineup. Brek Shea, Heath Pearce, Brad Guzan, Jonathan Specter, Clarence Goodson and Maurice Edu are all changes from Saturday's match. Stuart Holden, Jermaine Jones, Oguchi Onyewu, Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore are the holdovers in what appears to be a second straight match that will feature a 4-2-3-1 formation.
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