Fan Post: Chelsea vs. AC Milan in Baltimore

Posted by Stacks (Follow Me)- Stacks was born in DC and raised in VA. That's about all you need to know about him. - To see more posts by this author click here

Another guest post by one of our readers…I love it!  Goose contacted me asking if he could write a post for us as he was planning on attending the Chelsea vs. AC Milan game in Baltimore last weekend and I thought it was a great idea.  As we’ve said time and again, we love feedback and ideas from our reader so without further ado another Fan Post. . .

Five months ago, I received a phone call from one of my fraternity brothers in Richmond.  The conversation was quick, €œGoose, Chelsea is playing AC Milan in Baltimore on July 24^th€¦you in?€  My fraternity brother loves soccer and loves Chelsea so I knew who both teams were but if you don’t follow soccer, Chelsea is one of the top teams in the English Premier League and AC Milan is in the Italian league.  I responded with €œSure, why the hell not?€  Thinking in my head, I’ve been to a few DC United games and had a blast.  It would also give me a chance to hang out with all my boys that live in Richmond that I don’t see too often.

So the day comes and the plans are made that my boys would pick me up and we would roll to Baltimore.  Of course we hit traffic.  How can you go anywhere in DC without hitting traffic?  While we are inching along I felt like someone was looking at me, I got that vibe.  When I turned to look out the window, I see an older lady, mid 60′s, with a smile from ear to ear.  I also noticed that she was holding a Chelsea hat.  At first I thought nothing of it, but that was only until I saw another car that was full of people wearing soccer jerseys.  As I started putting two and two together, the traffic reporter on the radio said that the increased traffic was a result of a soccer game in Baltimore.  That’s when I realized, this was going to be quite an experience.  Pulling into the city we saw just amazing crowds of people, all representing soccer€¦whether it be with jerseys, hats, flags or painted faces.   I have been to a sold out Ravens game before (when they played the Redskins), but for some reason this seemed like a lot more people.

We finally get to the hotel, get checked in, and then decide to grab a bite to eat.  While eating, all we can talk about is the fact that there were so many people everywhere€¦and that everyone was representing soccer and their country.  I overhear conversations between soccer fans talking about their trip to Baltimore and how amazing this is for soccer in America, people coming from Canada, Florida, California and England.  I actually spoke with a gentleman in the Air Force, stationed in Saudia Arabia, who took two days of leave to fly here to watch his favorite player, Ronaldinho, who plays for AC Milan.  We begin to make our way to the stadium and at every corner our mob of people would meet up with another mob.  This continued the entire way to the stadium.  The M&T Bank stadium parking lot was packed with people juggling soccer balls or standing around one of the many vendor tents containing either merchandise or food and beverages.  This was truly a sight to see.

When the match began the crowd went nuts.  For many of the fans, their dreams finally came true and for others like myself a door was reopened to a sport I had loved for years but never at this magnitude.  A goal was scored within the first ten minutes by Chelsea which hyped the crowd right from the start.  A few minutes later, Rolandinho cranked a bicycle kick at the top of the box which would’ve gone in if it didn’t hit his teammate.  The level of play between these two teams is remarkable compared to MLS.  It truly boggles my mind how players are able to effortlessly kick the ball across the field to a teammate, who in return stops it with his chest and it drops inches from going out of bounds.  They use every inch of that field.   The second goal was scored by AC Milan right before halftime.  One of my buddies and I decided to walk around because he wanted a jersey and I just want to people watch.  I was talking with a police officer and she told me this was the largest number of people Baltimore has had in town for any sporting event.  I started thinking about what made this event appear to have so many more people at it and then it hit me.  For a baseball game or football game most the crowd already lives in or around that city.  For this game the majority of the crowd was from out of town.  Imagine the normal crowd of people, not soccer fans that flood the Inner Harbor for weekend trips or Bachelor parties, and then add over 71,000 more people.  There were people standing outside the stadium that didn’t have tickets but were still watching on the TV’s around the perimeter.  The final score came in the 69^th minute from Chelsea.  This topped off my night.  The team that I had just became a fan of, won!  The best part about it was the fact that AC Milan fans were obviously disappointed but they still had smiles.  At football games, I always see opposing fans in each other’s faces, ready to throw down.  This was nothing like that.

The thrill of being able to see these teams, play at this level and not having to go to Europe for that was what keep the positive level.  I can only compare this to when the NBA plays in Europe or in Asia.  But this poses my question; will soccer in America ever be able to compete with the NBA?  I know NFL is number one, but with soccer being the most popular sport in the world and soccer being the top sport played in youth league in America, why does it fade out as Americans get older?

Now this being my first article, I’ll let udothedishes€¦

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