St. Louis gets MLS team! (For a day)

Since the KC Wizards minor league ballpark is booked and Arrowhead is getting renovations, St. Louis gets to host the Wizards versus Mexican team Atlas in the Superliga. I’m pretty excited about this and hopefully we get a decent turnout to help out future expansion bids. KC should be bringing the full squad as well. It should be a good time down at St. Louis University on father’s day.

 

That's great. I only wish it were a regular league match instead of Superliga.

...but you know what they say about beggars and choosers. And as far as pro soccer is concerned, we St. Louisans are definately beggars!

I'll probably bring a couple of my boys. The USMNT has a game against Egypt in South Africa at 1:30 p.m. I hope the MLS keeps that in mind when they schedule the time of this game.

Also, I just checked the baseball Cardinals schedule. They are playing away (at Kansas City, no less) with a 1:30 start time. In this town, if you're hoping to draw a crowd, you would do well to schedule around that.

 

The day started off with a grueling walk from my apartment in south St. Louis to Humphrey’s in midtown. We had about 30 soccer fans in Humphreys to watch the games prior to the kickoff of Atlas de Guadalajara vs. the Kansas Wizards. After an amazing time watching an improbable US win and Italian loss, we trucked it to Hermann stadium on the campus of Saint Louis University (SLU). It was hot…simply put it was 90+ on the thermostat and 100+ if you’re into that heat index thing.

I wanted this match report to be insanely detailed, but I think I suffered heat stroke by halftime. So I’ll point out the things I remember.

Start of game - Great to see Jack Jewsberry on a SLU field again. Nothing impressive to report in the first half hour.

The 31st minute offered a much needed water break for the players. I want to mock this, but seriously it was hot out there.

The 40th minute saw the Atlas coach sent off, but I suspect he just wanted to get off the field, because it was ridiculously hot.

Atlas had the best chances of the first half, but nothing significant and nothing Hartmann couldn’t handle.

The second half started and thankfully shade hit the main stand and I got some relief. On an unrelated note, I need to work on my Spanish. The eavesdropping on conversations around me left me confused. Kudos to the small Mexican population of Saint Louis for coming out to support Atlas.

The 75th Minute offered another official water break. Seriously it was hot.

Kansas City had the best chances of the second half, but the game ended in a scoreless draw. It was much deserved and I felt for the players. Nobody deserved to win this game. Their was a late red card on KC (Espinoza), but it was a bad call.

The crowd was boisterous and into the game, but it was only about 6,500 (roughly 7,000 capacity) people. If I had to guess if this was a good or bad for the future of a Saint Louis MLS bid , I would call it a push. The fans were dedicated, but the casual fan was not present for this game.