brian wrote:I was at the Sept. 1, 2001 game vs. Honduras and the stadium was 70 percent Honduran. That game is the only home World Cup qualifier the US has lost in the last 30 years.
ETA: Old school ESPN story.
So yeah, RFK/DC will likely never get another meaningful WC qualifier ever again.
I was there for that, too. Amazing atmosphere and game. But totally agree with everyone on not putting a WCQ there again. A little more info/backstory...
Beyond putting games in harder to reach locations, as previously mentioned, those venues also benefit from the proliferation of soccer-specific stadiums. When we rolled Mexico in La Guerra Fria (Uno), a huge part of the success was the ability to block out Mexicans from acquiring tickets. They were able to, basically, pre-sell almost the entire stadium with Crew season ticket holders and Sam's Army members. There were still lots of El Tri fans, but the limited supply and the LOYALTY of those buying the tickets (ie not scalping them) built the first pro-US crowd versus the Mexicans in a WCQ.
They tried doing something similar at RFK against the Guatemalans in that cycle, but a) the venue is too big so there's no way to box out all the opposing fans and b) there are a ton of El Sal, Guatemalans and/or non-USians in the DCU season ticket holder base to begin with... You just weren't going to achieve that result at RFK.
Now, might you have slightly better luck if DCU gets the long-awaited soccer stadium down at Buzzard's Point? Maybe. Certainly better odds with a 30,000 seat venue than RFK's 45k+.