I would like to just briefly drift away from ‘the world’s game’ and draw attention to the fishy nature behind New Jersey’s latest eyesore, the New Meadowlands Stadium. The New Meadowlands Stadium was built as a replacement for the old neighboring Giants Stadium. Shortly after New York’s failed bid for the 2012 Summer Olympics (and inadvertently the failure of the construction of the NFL’s New York Jets solely owned Manhattan stadium), the Jets teamed up with city rivals New York Giants to build a new venue from scratch. Having shared the old Giants Stadium for decades, sharing this new stadium was not a new concept for the two teams. The teams agreed to split costs and ultimately signed a contract with Swedish development company, Skanska AB. After winning the rights to building the stadium Skanska assessed the project at $998 million, making it their biggest project to date. But final estimates suggest that the cost was much larger than that, nearing a whopping $1.6 billion to complete construction and making it the world’s most expensive stadium. Despite the massive cost and being located in one of the world’s largest metropolitan areas, the New Meadowlands Stadium is hardly spectacular.

The New Meadowlands Stadium was the last constructed member in what I like to call the” trifecta of world stadiums”, built during this past decade; the other two being London’s Wembley Stadium and Dallas’s New Cowboys Stadium. All three had their fair share of construction complexities, had cost over $1 million to build, and are located in metropolitan areas of over 1 million people (the New Yankee Stadium also fulfilled this criteria but since I highly doubt a soccer game will ever be played at that venue, I tend to leave it out). Out of the three, many will agree that the most awe-inspiring is the Cowboys Stadium. With a fully retractable roof, a kind of pointless retractable ” glass door”, and the world’s largest HDTV, Cowboys fans get the ultimate fan experience. Jerry Jones and co. paid a hefty $1.3 billion for this Texas gem.

The other notable stadium is the home of football itself, the reconstructed Wembley Stadium in London. I would say that Wembley’s case is most similar to that of the New Meadowlands’ in the sense that it took forever to get the project to get going and the venues themselves did not meet fans’ expectations. Likewise both projects each ended up costing nearly $1.6 billion making them substantially more expensive than the Cowboys’ new stadium. The question is, for such mediocre stadiums like the Meadowlands, why the price tag?

Out of sheer curiosity, I decided to pull up the budgets for all three projects and really try to see what the hell these poor sports fans are paying for. Turns out that finding these documents online are much more difficult than I would have imagined. I wasn’t surprised that the Cowboys Stadium budget was the first one that I was able to find (I mean it only that the state that’s run by fiscally sound Republicans and not crooks was going to have their act together). Although Wembley did not publish as detailed of a breakdown, they were able to at least briefly sum up in a pathetic five lines how the budget was split up. As for the Meadowlands Stadium, there was hardly any data available regarding construction costs.

After doing some research it seemed that there were two main reasons for why the cost of the New Jersey stadium boomed from under $1 million to $1.6 million. The first was the sudden rise in steal costs. According to one article, construction managers ran out of steel midway through the project. Now I have no idea how you underestimate such a seemingly intuitive cost, but ultimately its the New Jersey taxpayer that gets screwed. Even though the new stadium was financed with solely Jets and Giants money, many forget that the New Jersey tax payers are still paying for the predecessor, Giants Stadium. What’s scarier than that is that peoples’ pension funds are invested in the Meadowlands Complex despite experiencing a serious cash drainage in the past several years. The second reason for such a high cost resulted in efforts to make the stadium one of the world’s most environmentally friendly (and the delusional Libs must have gotten what they wanted…). Despite not having any financial data disclosed online, I was able to find plenty of info on how the stadium is built from recycled material and developed on a rehabilitated piece of land (whatever that means). In the end you have a barren stadium that looks like a “stack of CDs” without hardly any sort of modern day bolts and whistles. How the hell New Jersey got away with this one is a mystery to me but I would imagine there was a lot of sketchy stuff that went on in order to finalize the project. Yeah, I’m talking to you NJSEA (New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority). The organization has long been in millions of dollars in debt, yet it still oversees the Meadowlands Complex and pretty much has monopolistic control over all other New Jersey entertainment venues. Despite the debt, NJSEA has absolutely minimal transparency. Last year Senator Barbara Buono of Middlesex County expressed her frustration over NJSEA’s finances yet the organization continues to go back to the state for more and more money. I’m sure NJSEA was able to get away with it by cheating New Jersey legislators and focusing on the “future profits” that could be made from having such a venue (i.e. Super Bowl, World Cup, etc.), or something along those lines that is beyond me.

In the end, corruption-prone New Jersey got blindsided with a mediocre slab of steel that looks like a slightly revamped version of the old Giants Stadium. Heck if I was Sepp Blatter and I was told that the final of the 2022 World Cup was going to be played at the New Meadowlands Stadium, I’d give the World Cup to Qatar too.

P.S. It’s also about time they sold the naming rights to someone. Writing “New Meadowlands Stadium” every other line is just freaking annoying.

As we we peered into our TVs watching the FSC WC bid coverage or watched attentively at work or school on the FIFA website, all of us passionate fans were expecting to start off our day on a happy note. Instead Sepp Blatter opens the envelope and holds up a card with “Qatar” written on the front. We experienced a lot of emotions yesterday. Sadness. Shock. Frustration. But after thinking about it a little more, I came to the conclusion that maybe not winning the right to host the 2022 World Cup wasn’t such a bad thing for US soccer after all.

After seeing Facebook and Twitter blow up with messages that expressed our angst over the result, it was at least nice to see that people cared. It was yet another sign that soccer is growing in this country and that (this is going to sound corny) “the game is in us.” Although it really is in many of us, soccer has obviously not nearly reached its potential in the US. This is only perhaps the second generation in the US that is passionate about soccer. There was first the generation that grew up with the NASL that went on to take their kids to games at World Cup ’94. And then there is the current generation of soccer fans: a generation mixed with passionate college students, suburban soccer players, and the chic Starbucks goers that choose soccer because its “different.” Soccer in America is growing, and it is growing at a relatively fast pace. With all that in mind, I think that yesterday was a huge step in the American soccer fan’s understanding of the world’s game.

What do you want? We’ve only had about two “real” generations of soccer fans and the demands of US soccer are so tremendously high. The MLS formed in 1996 and yet we are already talking about becoming one of the world’s best leagues? This past decade is the first time in modern era that we have had “good” showings at World Cups and we’re already talking about winning it (Spain just won their first World Cup this year and they by a by far have a bigger soccer tradition than us)? And now we’re mad about not being able to host the World Cup for a SECOND time? We’re trying to catch up to the rest of the world’s soccer powerhouses in the span of a decade in a half. It just does not work that way…

I guess the primary reason for why we took yesterday so hard was because of, let’s admit it, our superiority complex. We go into the Olympics, and we expect to finish first in the medals count. We go into the World Basketball Championships, and we expect to win it. And when an NFL team wins the Super Bowl or an MLB team wins the “World” Series, they’re considered world champions. Unfortunately, one of the reasons for why soccer isn’t catching on as fast is it could be is because of this complex. A lot of mainstream American sports fans are puzzled by why American soccer isn’t the best and they tend to ignore the game because of this. But for those of us that DO follow the game, the lingering superiority effect is still there: clearly we have the best stadiums and infrastructure in the world, thereby we should get the World Cup whenever we want it. However there is a lot more that goes into selecting a World Cup host than for example, the host for the next Super Bowl. I mean you’re talking more than just sports here; you’re talking about politics, money, and development. It’s not just which country is the most capable of hosting.

All in all, I hate to admit that I’m actually OK with FIFA’s decision yesterday for a number of reasons. In 1994, the US was in the same shoes as Qatar currently is — a country hosting a World Cup for the first time that has very little to no interest in soccer. I’m sure there were many disgruntled Europeans that were pissed about the US getting the World Cup. Developing soccer throughout the world and using it as a tool to develop countries as well is something that I am a proponent for (however I am not going to be naive and say that this was the only reason for why FIFA chose Russia and Qatar as hosts; money…you know…oil and gas?… was certainly a factor). Second of all, if we did win the right to host the 2022 World Cup, it would just be too soon. I think soccer is developing at a nice pace in this country and we are still running on the momentum of having had the World Cup in 1994. Once this runs out in around 20-30 more years, then it would once again be our time.

Lastly, we must understand that our country’s world perception has gone down from last decade and the dollar has weakened. This would in-part explain how the USA got the  ’94 World Cup, ’96 Summer Olympics, and the ’02 Winter Olympics and since then had unsuccessful bid attempts for the ’12, ’16 Summer Olympics and now the 2022 World Cup. Frankly, more people would have probably been pissed had the US got the World Cup, than the amount of people that are currently pissed about Qatar getting it. I strongly think that its the ups and downs of events like giving up a 2-0 lead against Brazil in the 2009 Confederations Cup Final, winning against Algeria in the last minute in 2010, and losing the 2022 World Cup bid is what will make the American soccer fan stronger. It’s this cycle of frustration, anticipation, anguish, and success that will make us on par with the rest of the big names in world soccer, not just necessarily money.

Former New England Revolution forward retired today putting an end to a shortened career. Reoccurring head injuries forced Twellman to end his 2008 MLS season early and the former US international had not been able to recover since. Twellman will go down as one of MLS’s best players of the past decade but was just a bit unlucky in not having an even greater career. A product of the notable University of Maryland soccer program, Twellman made a quick jump to Europe playing for Germany’s 1896 Munich early in his career but could not quite breakthrough into the main team despite achieving moderate success at the reserve level. So Twellman like a few other struggling American youngsters returned back to his American roots to achieve an ample amount of experience. In his first year as a member of the New England Revolution, Twellman notched an impressive 23 goals in 28 games and finished runner-up as a the league’s MVP. Twellman eventually won his first career MVP in 2005 as he hit his prime and was linked with teams in Europe. After scoring a hat-trick in early 2006 for the US Men’s National Team it seemed inevitable that former USMNT head coach Bruce Arena would take him to the 2006 World Cup but he controversially picked the notorious Brian Ching instead (I’m not going to take anything away from Ching, although I should, but this was one of Arena’s poorest decisions of his USMNT coaching career). Although upset, Twellman shook it off and continued to achieve success in the MLS and continued to attract interest from Europe. But a stubborn New England side refused to let the striker go and the MLS managed to hold to one of its prized assets. Twellman notched 8 goals in 2008 before playing his last game against a season later against my NY Red Bulls in which he scored his 100th career goal and a game that I was lucky enough to attend. Currently Twellman is playing around with pursuing a commentating career after a making a few cameos appearances on ESPN (Taylor, I’m sure you’ll be a better commentator than any of the current ex-USMNT players!) I’ll remember Twellman for his ability to get up in the air despite being a short forward (something all forwards of his size, including myself, could learn from) and how absolutely ripped he looked in that tight-ass Revolution jersey haha. Thanks for the memories lad!

Top footballer, top class. But props to the girl for not turning this into some made up hit-and-run story or some prostitution allegation. Seems to be a common trend nowadays…

Wesley Sneijder made sure to get Scooter Girl's digits

Fast forward to 1:18

German reporter gets rocked by a soccer ball.

And you’ll never get a job…