Thats what we have at the moment in Ohio when it comes to soccer. St. Ignatius is the #1 ranked high school team in the country, Univ. of Akron is the # 1 ranked college team in the country, and of course I cant leave out the Crew. Tonight I am going to watch St. Ignatius play in the regionals of the state tournament. Should be a blow out. I hope some of you on here consider going to take in a high school soccer state tournament match - there's nothing like high school athletics.
Here in STL, they typically draw about 10,000 for the state high school final four. It is the best soccer atmosphere I've ever experienced live...which isn't saying much, since I've not had a chance to attend many soccer matches. The final four is typically dominated by the all-boys Catholic schools (especially the Jesuit schools...brother schools to St. Ignatius). The boys go all out and cheer like crazy. We're just getting the state playoffs underway here in Missouri. The final four matches are always the weekend before Thanksgiving.
St. Louis has always been a hotbed of soccer. I can remember in the 60s/70s noticing that The NCAA Soccer Top 10 usually had Southern Illinois, USL, and Washington University [StL] listed. Congrats on Cleveland, which as we know, rocks.
We've got the B12 women's tourney cranking up here in SA. I usually go to see the hottest soccer team on the planet (the Lady Ags) but might not have the time this year. The soccer is usually really good though.
Re: RE: Embarrassment of riches That sounds like quite an atmosphere. Do they often end up playing the final four in St. Louis? If so you're lucky. I saw St. Ignatius and another local team play in the state semi-final a few years ago and it was an amazing match. They played it at Cleveland State's soccer specific stadium which is nice but only seats 2,000. It was sold out and the gate's closed 30 minutes before the start of the game. People watched the game from trees and in rows 2 and 3 people deep from outside the stadiums chain link fence. If that doesnt point out a need for a larger soccer specific stadium I dont know what does. And then Cleveland would get it's MLS team. How is St. Louey doing on that front? St. Ignatius is almost always dominant in soccer, and football too. It's a bit irritating because being a private school they can draw athletes from all over the region while a public school cannot. But it makes it all the more sweet when they get beat.
RE: Re: RE: Embarrassment of riches High School soccer is pretty big in Maryland, but many of the best players don't even play on their high school side - they are on their club travel teams year round.
RE: Re: RE: Embarrassment of riches The club-vs-high-school debate is raging here in STL. The local mega-club (St. Louis Scott-Gallagher) wants to have a better showing in the national Development Academy leagues, and some feel that the way to do that is to go to a year-round schedule and have the boys skip high school soccer. But high school soccer is deeply entrenched here, with a long tradition. MO, the final four has ALWAYS been in St. Louis, at a soccer facility that until last year was owned and beautifully maintained by the Anheuser-Busch brewery. But now that the brewery is no longer locally owned, they've given up ownership and maintenance of their soccer park, so I'm not sure what the future holds.
Re: RE: Embarrassment of riches No movement. After getting rejected in the last go-round, I don't think there is any hope. The St. Louis bid included a nice soccer-specific stadium funded by a local municipality, but that was not enough. Our ownership group was deemed to be insufficiently capitalized. In short, our would-be owner wasn't rich enough. So, unless some really, really rich guy wants to back a St. Louis team, I think we're out of luck. High school and college soccer are all we're ever gonna have :cry:
RE: Re: RE: Embarrassment of riches By the way, the game was great. Will go down as one of my most memorable soccer experiences. While it was very one sided in terms of possesion, it was not one sided at all in terms of the result. St. Ignatius beat Mayfield 1-0 with the winning goal coming off of a corner kick header with 2 min left to play. What was amazing was Mayfield's defense. Technically I think they had four in the back but often it was 6 or 7. When one defender stepped up to challenge the midfielders and other defenders rotated back beautifully. They must have a very good coach. I never thought that I could get excited about a team hunkering down and basically just playing defense, but this was so well executed and exciting. I have never, ever seen defenders cover the goal so well. Numerous times the Mayfield goalie got beat, not once but twice in a single attack, but there was always a defender there that somehow managed to clear the ball. It really was incredible, I cant do justice to it. And it is not just me, I was sitting among the St. Ignatius fans and even they couldnt hide thier awe.
JP & Brad -- it is a major CRIME that there's not a MLS franchise in St. Louis. It is a prime example of what is wrong with the MLS leadership. They're all about international tie-ins and televisioin market share and not about soccer tradition in this country. Mo, glad you got to see the match.Thanks for the report.
So the Yankees just bought another World Series with their $250 million in winter acquisitions and celebrated in their $1.5 billion new stadium that was basically paid for by the residents on NYC and built on stolen park land all while Mayor Bloomberg, who lobbied to lift mayoral term limits so he could spend $100 million of his own money to become mayor, again, looked on while Joe Buck and Fox broadcasted it. Oh, wait, this thread is about high school soccer? Sorry. The title was a bit misleading...
Seriously, Don.. there's been so much written on that I'm REALLY surprised you dont know the answer and even more, that you blame MLS for it. MLS staked out only TWO cities for 'must-have' franchises. NY and LA. The reason there's a franchise in Columbus of all places. The reason there is none in St Louis. It requires someone to step up and show the money. Instead there seemed to be a lot of people who expected the St L rich history to automatically translate into a club. You COULD blame the Busch family.. but dont blame MLS. Yeah, Mo.. it was so good I took the liberty of pasting your post into the Crew BS HS thread.
