My First MLS Match

Jonny, Iris, and I went to the new Red Bulls Arena for the Thierry Henry debut against Tottenham. Even though the Red Bulls lost, they played better and had more and better chances against Tottenham and lost the game 2-1 on stupid defensive mistakes. Even though Thierry Henry is on the downside of his career, his control of the ball and extremely fast mental pace created an electric atmosphere whenever he touched the ball. It became clear that most of his Red Bulls teammates could not keep up with his game. He was awesome. The impressive crowd of 20,000 was engaged and loud for most of the game, which added to the experience. Here are some thoughts on the match:

1) Singing Rocks

There's something about hearing a melody rather than a chant or cheer that is freaking awesome. I realize that constantly singing songs isn't really possible at football games, where the flow of the game is much more choppy, but singing really is much more pleasant to the years than shouting. Singing also displays greater unison than shouting cheers, as cheers are often only a few words while songs are much lengthier, so the unision heard is much more apparent and much more powerful.

This could also be a result of football stadiums being much larger than soccer stadiums (Manchester United's stadium only seats 75,000), and the size of football stadiums make it very difficult to sing because of the time it takes for sound to travel. Even if everyone in the stadium is singing in unison, people on one end will hear the singing of the people on the other end around a second later, which screws with the head and makes it really hard to sing. Even at the Big House, it's rare that everyone is in sync when we sing the Victors. It's just very difficult with that size of a stadium. That's just my theory.

The insane fan section:


2) Red Bulls Arena is SWEET

This is the first season Red Bulls Arena is open, and for an MLS stadium, it's really, really nice. I don't what it's called, but I am always amazed at the electronic tickertape thing that goes around the stadium. The capacity of the stadium is a little over 25,000, which sounds shabby compared to the Big House, but is still big enough to look pretty awesome. My favorite thing about the stadium was probably the roof, which extended over the seats but was transparent so we can experience natural lighting. The sky was also absolutely beautiful the night we went, which only added to the magnificence of the stadium.



3) No Diving Allowed

One thing that I really like about the MLS is that there isn't really diving involved. Here in the United States, we like our men strong and manly, not wimpy like in the World Cup. During the course of the game, there must have been less than 10 fouls called. Sure, it was an international friendly, but it was refreshing watching a game where the players tried to stay and plays on their feet. From the MLS games that I have watched, diving isn't really an issue, so don't let the bad aftertaste of the World Cup keep you from watching the MLS!

4) Sitting down is nice.

At work earlier in the day, we had our company picnic, where I played two and a half hours of volleyball. My legs were exhausted. It was a relief to find out that it wasn't like on TV where everyone is standing and dancing around playing vuvuzelas, but that I could sit and enjoy the game. I love the college football atmosphere, and I like the passion of standing during games, but it's also nice to be able to relax and actually be able to see everything that's happening on the field. Even though our seats were kind of high up, I enjoyed being able to sit and really watch the game, jumping out of my seat whenever anything exciting happened (which was actually quite often).




A not-very-exciting video of when Thierry Henry was announced:



My First MLB Game