US Soccer Needs to Put the HDC In Mothballs

It's time for US Soccer to turn it's back on the Home Depot Center. It's time to stop this nonsense and start playing matches in cities that actually give a damn about American soccer. Alright I admit this isn't going to happen but that won't stop me from making the argument.

Let's begin with the most important black mark on the credibility of the Home Depot Center...a small beer cost $11! This is a travesty...it's a sham...it's a mockery! It's a traveshamockery! (That's for you E to the Y)

Second, a quick disclaimer. No offense to the Home Depot Corporation. I love a gigantic home improvement warehouse as much as the next guy, but your name is on the stadium so it's going to get lumped in with this mess.

This was the line used to describe the atmosphere on Saturday in the match report posted on USSoccer.com: "Clarence Goodson’s second half goal was not enough to overturn the deficit in front of an enthusiastic crowd of 18,626 fans". Sounds great right? 18k plus enthusiastic and loud fans? Hell, it sounded good on television...if you were a Honduras supporter!

My people on the ground estimated the number of US supporters in attendance to less than 2,000 with only a couple pockets of loud and involved fans supporting the Yanks. I don't care if this was little more than a B/C team exhibition for Bob Bradley to possibly discover a couple final names to consider for the World Cup roster. This is completely unacceptable! This is OUR national soccer team! Instead USSF and the city of Los Angeles manged to make the HDC sound like Estadio Olimpico Metropolitano.

All it needs is a Home Depot sign.

Unfortunately, with Home Depot Center being the home of the USSF National Training Center, decent winter weather and a huge population of people from CONCACAF countries, we will continue to see matches played at the HDC because butts in the seats equals money in the bank for the USSF, and clearly that's all that matters.

There probably isn't a city in the United States that could fill a stadium with nothing but US supporters but I'm pretty sure there are cities that can at least do better than 1,000 to 2,000 of them. We sure as hell know DC and Seattle could do better! Plus, how many of those estimated 2k at HDC on Saturday night traveled from other cities and states? Not that I really expect things to be much better in Tampa next month but you never know. I get that it's expensive to travel, heck I can't afford to jump on a plane and go to these matches, but I guess I'm crazy for thinking that more cannot be done to increase interest in the USMNT and matches held on US soil.

So why just pick on the Home Depot Center when this is clearly a national issue? Because the HDC will never get any better. Face it, LA is NOT an American soccer town. At its best it's a fair weather, what have you done for me lately sports town (a lot like Dallas). When it comes to all things soccer in the City of Angels it takes some guy from England to stir up interest and even that quickly became old news. In addition, let us not forget that can't even keep the damn lights on for an important match! There are plenty of places across the country that have fans and stadiums that would welcome the USMNT and probably at least be able to even the odds when it comes to fan support...then again maybe not.

So what's the point of this rant? Support for the US Men's National Team is still woefully lacking and rather than attempt to build fan support and increase interest, the USSF would rather stage matches in cities with large populations of fans that will support the selected opponent of the day. In other words, fill up the seats and pad the coffers. It all comes down to money and somewhere Jack Warner is smiling and saying "Well done Sunil".