Z/Web

I happened to have a trip to Missouri planned so I positioned it around this game so I could attend. (I have a goal of visiting every MLS stadium for a match, so now I can cross KC off my list.)

The first and most important thing to note is the weather. Earlier in the week it was 78 degrees and I was sweating. On Saturday a cold front blew in and I actually had snow coming down as I was driving to KC. It was 30 degrees at the stadium that night, which was not good for me as I wasn’t dressed for that, and it wasn’t great for the soccer, which was sluggish and there were no goals. By the end of the night I was a popsicle.

Still, it was a fun night. There were fireworks, I got to see how Sporting puts on a match, and I got to explore their stadium. Most interesting to me is the location: basically in the middle of a huge shopping center!

There are apparently other stadiums nearby and a race track, so there’s tons of parking (some of a good walk away) and it’s all free. (Compare that to Seattle, where they jack up the parking prices to $40 for a few hours on match days.) Right across from the stadium are huge stores like Best Buy and such, restaurants, and much more. I didn’t have time to explore such things, but had I known I could have come early and done so.

The stadium itself felt a little smaller than I expected. Not in terms of seatings (though is a modest 18K or so), but the way it’s designed it’s really just one level. So the loop around the top of the stadium has a few concession stands (nothing that interesting or special) and that’s all there is to it. You descend from that into the bowl where the seats are located. It’s very nice, but I think stadiums like the one in Vancouver, B.C. have more variety. Even Providence Park, in Portland, has different types of architecture and levels.

Overall it was fun. I may come back when the Timbers play there sometime, though I’ll definitely not coming the winter (though summers there can be sweltering, so I’d have the opposite problem).