Union Berlin made its Bundesliga debut on Sunday afternoon, and not even a 4-0 beatdown from rivals RB Leipzig could dampen the mood at the Alte Försterei in East Berlin.
Video footage has circulated around social media of construction workers in Qatar going on strike in response to the inhumane working conditions they have dealt with during stadium construction for the upcoming 2022 World Cup. The strike began on Sunday with thousands of workers protesting on the outskirts of one of their work-sites.
Everton has unveiled the first renderings for its proposed $623 million, 52,000-seat stadium on the banks of the River Mersey, complete with all the things that a modern soccer stadium must have: a stand that draws its inspiration from Borussia Dortmund’s “Yellow Wall,” heaps of steel and glass, promises of as-close-as-possible proximity to the pitch, and yes, a tunnel club for the excruciatingly rich to watch the players enter and exit the pitch like peng
For the uninitiated, there’s nothing more surreal than the conglomerates of fans that group together in unison to turn the world's footballing cathedrals into cauldrons of noise and song. In America, this sort of thing can be seen in college football and basketball, but the choreographed support largely dies at the professional level (save for a stadium wave here and a seventh-inning stretch there).
Last night in Bridgeview, Illinois, a crowd of 17,388 turned up at SeatGeek Stadium to watch the Chicago Red Stars defeat the North Carolina Courage 2-1 in NWSL play. For a bit of perspective, the Chicago Fire has averaged a gate of 11,209 throughout the 2019 MLS season. According to ESPN’s Sarah Spain, it was the first-ever sellout for a Chicago women’s professional soccer team.
The 2022 World Cup in Qatar is, on the whole, unfathomable. The mind boggles at an expenditure of $200 billion, while a current reported death toll of over 1,400 migrants is like combining the casualties of the Falklands War and 2011 Egyptian revolution. All this to kick that ball around.
Before MLS, the NASL was a popular competition in the United States, pulling in players like Pele, George Best and Johan Cruyff. NASL clubs mainly played in American football and baseball stadiums, and after the league went broke and MLS succeeded the NASL in the next decade, MLS clubs did not have stadiums of their own starting out.
On Tuesday, the suburb of Bridgeview and the Chicago Fire announced that the terms of their lease had been amended, meaning that the club will no longer play its matches in the village — more specifically, at SeatGeek Stadium — through the 2036 season, as the original lease dictated.
If you build it, they will come. That comes as no surprise given the approximate season ticket waitlist of 13,000, but the Portland Timbers finally put on their 2019 home opener — 13 matches into the MLS season — in front of a sellout crowd of 25,218 at Providence Park on Saturday night.
The stadium, located in southwest Portland, underwent an $85 million expansion that added roughly 4,000 seats to the eastern side of the stadium, accounting for the Timbers’ historic 12-game road trip to begin the season.
On Sunday, Union Berlin (third place finisher in the 2. Bundesliga) upset VfB Stuttgart (16th place finisher in the Bundesliga) in the Relegation Playoffs to send the second division side into Germany’s top division for the first time in its 54-year history.
The final whistle was greeted with delirium inside Union’s home ground, the Alte Försterei. The club, which is located in the south east of Berlin, has a passionate fanbase and routinely draws 22,000 to its unique all-standing stadium.