. . . . . . The Daily Soccer . . . . . .

Your intrepid blogger (I put my hat on askew just so I would look a little more like a cub reporter) has seen the future and...it has blue seats! My visit to the Chicago Fire's soon-to-be completed Bridgeview Stadium was tantalizing indeed. While I still can't believe there's a professional soccer palace a mere 30 minutes from my house, I can't help but ask why the color scheme is blue while the team is Fire red. But that's a small complaint...

Here's what's good:
Location, Location, Location: The stadium is situated 30 minutes by car from nearly everywhere...downtown Chicago, most of the western suburbs, the south suburbs and the near northern suburbs. You get the idea. More importantly, the Fire will run free buses from the Midway Airport "L" stop which is only about 10 minutes away.

The Stadium Itself: While we can always wish for a better roof on our soccer stadia in America (a la European venues) at least we have a bit of a roof in Bridgeview. And we also have some actual seats. The end zones (I can't escape American football parlance) have benches as does the upper deck on the west side. By my estimation, less than half of the stadium has seats. No big deal. Fanatics always stand for the game anyway and actual seats provide folks with a good reason to buy the midfield tickets. And more actual seats can always be added. But the biggest attraction is the brick. There's lots of it on the outside (none on the inside). And it looks great on the approach to the stadium. It's hard to imagine this stadium will suffer the 30 year wrecking ball fate that so many venues endure.

Stadium Ownership: You can read about the details of the financing, but until you get there it doesn't hit home that the smallish hamlet of Bridgeview owns this stadium. They put out the $100 million. That fact becomes all the more unbelievable when you're staring at the stadium. Most fans could care less who owns it. But...stadium ownership sheds light on the reason that there are blue, not red, seats. The Fire and AEG (their parent company) didn't control that decision. And the Fire won't control a lot of decisions about the stadium. So what. We have our stadium and it's miles better than playing in Soldier Field or Naperville.

The 2006 Concert Schedule (oh by the way, there are some soccer games as well): The dual purpose baseball/football stadia of the 70's will be remembered for all of history as UGLY bowls. Thankfully, the bowls have almost all seen the wrecking ball by now (Three Rivers in Pittsburgh, Busch Stadium in St. Louis, etc.). The multi-purpose stadium of the new Millennium in America is the Summer Concert / Soccer Stadium (SCSS). It's been mistakenly called the SSS (Soccer Specific Stadium). It's nothing of the sort. If it were soccer specific, it wouldn't have a stage permanently built into one end zone. It would have a better roof. It would match the color of the team. But these are bargains I'm more than willing to make. While the economics of soccer have improved somewhat in the U.S., there's no way MLS could support building these stadia on their own. They need the concert revenue to make sense for ownership. And Bridgeview represents the best of those bargains. Having the stage built into the end of the stadium means that the band can back up to with 10 feet or so of the stage to load and unload. As such, there can be a concert on Friday night and a soccer game on Saturday night. There's no stage to set up and break down.

Warm winter: With the recent mild (by Chicago standards) winter, construction appears to be on schedule or even ahead a bit. I'm sure it will be a race until the end, but there's been zero talk of delays...and that's the real indicator of progress. So let the concerts (oops, games) begin!

Here's what's bad: Waiting for the first game. Other than that, it feel like we won the lottery in Chicago. (Bostrom)