3rd Degree

August 20th, 2008 . By: Buzz Carrick

I have two little pieces of interest this morning on Cooper and road attendance.

Cooper vs Rooney

The first has to do with a certain Man U striker and his resemblance in playing style to a local striker named Cooper.  Below is a quote for you from Richard Jolly of ESPN, emphasis added by me. Reading it gave me a weird sense of déjà vu.

His growing sense of irritation is apparent when he becomes increasingly vocal towards officials, but also when he veers further and further from goal in a bid to make something happen. It is unusual that a forward with 41 goals in his previous two seasons is deemed insufficiently prolific, but then Rooney is judged by different standards to other players. Once again, United could have benefited from seeing him in the penalty box more often.

I find that interesting because many observers have said the same thing about Cooper, although certainly without the barking at officials part. Perhaps it’s now clear where Cooper learned to play like that and where his style comes from. Like Rooney, Cooper may be playing this way because he feels he has to do everything. Perhaps with improved service and a higher caliber partner Cooper will play a slightly more disciplined game.

Road Fans

The second point comes courtesy of John Carlton who pointed it out to me. Taking a look at the MLS stats page (you don’t have to actually look as I’ll pull the info I want to talk about) you will find part way down the league attendance numbers.

LA Galaxy is not surprisingly first with road attendance with a 28,341 average. Obviously that’s as it should be with Beckham in their side.

And #2? The completely shocking FC Dallas with 19,045, two grand higher than the next team Chicago and Blanco.

                            ROAD GAMES
                       DATES      TOTAL  AVERAGE
Los Angeles Galaxy      10    283,407   28,341
FC Dallas               10    190,446   19,045
Chicago Fire            10    170,205   17,021
Chivas USA               9    152,560   16,951
Kansas City Wizards     11    181,386   16,490
New York Red Bulls      10    157,776   15,778
San Jose Earthquakes    11    169,013   15,365
Toronto FC              10    152,427   15,243
Real Salt Lake           9    135,228   15,025
Columbus Crew           10    148,293   14,829
D.C. United              9    131,538   14,615
Houston Dynamo          10    140,963   14,096
Colorado Rapids          9    125,229   13,914
New England Revolution  10    136,176   13,618

Conclusions?

First FCD plays in the west so they get to play the high attendance Galaxy on the road, except that FCD hasn’t played LA on the road yet this year and only travel there one on the last day of the season. But they have traveled to Houston twice, where they draw above average as a rival with 20k in the first meeting this year, and to Toronto with it’s big home crowds. Yet that isn’t alone enough.

So is it that FC Dallas has a attractive team that everyone wants to see play everywhere but Dallas and out FO just can’t get it done at home?

Well no actually.

Because Brazil took on Venezuela in a double header with the Revs and FCD on April 6th with a crowd of 54,045 on hand. Take that out of the FCD numbers and FCD is actually averaging a normal 15,152 on the road. That’s only 9th in MLS, but is still 700 per game above the home number of 14,420.

By the way, FCD’s home number is 11th in the league with only KC, Columbus, and Colorado lower. So two HSG teams in the bottom four, with a former HSG team joining them and the most ignored ownership team of all in Colorado.

Still if we want to pretend we can say FCD is super hyped and loved by millions everywhere but here.

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