Giggity5313 wrote:barca 2011, while SAF has a point, trust me rivalries are huge. In dallas, we hate the dynamo so much, that fc dallas hosted an event for watching the mls cup final just so we can boo the dynamo haha

Thats pretty cool actually!! It's good to see that there are areas in the country who share that passion and of course rivalries exist in MLS but there are very few. But its also good to see that football has such a following somewhere other than the big 3 cities (NY, LA, Chicago) which have such huge and diverse populations.

But another reason that MLS teams are so stretched out is not just the size of the country but how young the league is in general so there just aren't many clubs while there are just too many cities when compared to the club to city and city to club ratio in Europe.
Check this picture out:



Those are our 3 entire football divisions, in other words every pro team in the U.S and I believe the NY Cosmos are on their way next year. It just cannot be compared to European countries but imagine if every somewhat major city had a team, lol. That'd be a LOT of teams and if that ever does happen it will take a very long time. Who knows if Football can ever catch on to that degree here in this country. I so wish it could but who knows when/if.

I'd love to see a Red Bulls/Cosmos rivalry though. And being from Chicago, another team there would be cool too. Its a dream to see a Cubs/White Sox level rivalry but in Football!

Chicago doesn't have the fanbase yet to support two clubs. Adding another at the moment would only kill both. Let the Fire and the sport grow and if/when the support base for the sport grow enough further clubs can be considered.

Lex wrote:London have Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham as well as some small teams like QPR and Tottenham all in the Premier League atm

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

CBarca wrote:

Lex wrote:London have Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham as well as some small teams like QPR and Tottenham all in the Premier League atm

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

Forza Rossoneri wrote:

CBarca wrote:

Lex wrote:London have Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham as well as some small teams like QPR and Tottenham all in the Premier League atm

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

Barca 2011, I totally agree, but with more teams, and with more people eventually playing football in america, I think the rivalry issue will be sorted out real soon haha. America honestly has huge, huge potential, far more then people even think..

The athleticism is there. Imagine the ball skills developed at a young age with that.. Quite scary to think about.

RedOranje wrote:Chicago doesn't have the fanbase yet to support two clubs. Adding another at the moment would only kill both. Let the Fire and the sport grow and if/when the support base for the sport grow enough further clubs can be considered.

Definitely. Like I said this wont happen soon. It's just not possible. But it would be cool to see someday in the future.

Giggity5313 wrote:

Forza Rossoneri wrote:

CBarca wrote:

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

Barca 2011, I totally agree, but with more teams, and with more people eventually playing football in america, I think the rivalry issue will be sorted out real soon haha. America honestly has huge, huge potential, far more then people even think..

The athleticism is there. Imagine the ball skills developed at a young age with that.. Quite scary to think about.

Lets hope. The rivalry issue is one thing but what I long for the most is to see general interest in the sport grow in the states than anything else.

rwo power wrote:

barca 2011 wrote:However I live in Southern California and if I were to go see my "home" football team I would have to drive upwards of an hour. Is this case for anyone of you guys in Europe?

My home team is my hometown's team, so it is right around the corner. If I'd want to go to a Schalke match, I'd have to drive only 15 or so kilometers, to Dortmund it is 40km, to Düsseldorf 30km, to Duisburg it is 17km and there are even a couple more clubs within 1 hour by car or train.

Well you certainly live conveniently rwo! +Germany's no speed limit highways, i bet you arrive their before the players lol

barca 2011 wrote:
But I've been wanting to ask this for a while now on the forums and this seems like a decent post. Some years ago Sir Alex said that Football just will not catch on in the states because the country is just too big to ever develop true rivalries. Now this isn't necessarily true for other sports. However I live in Southern California and if I were to go see my "home" football team I would have to drive upwards of an hour. Is this case for anyone of you guys in Europe?

I'm currently at Gloucester(about 2 hours away) so I hardly ever get to go to any Chelsea matches these days(although saving finances also contributes to it). Once in a while, if I'm around an area where Chelsea play that weekend and I can afford it, I go(Norwich last week, for example).

Its the sacrifice you have to make sometimes if conditions permit. The first condition for me is financially and then if I have less school work. If these too permit, I don't let the distance hinder me.



Great input from everyone btw. Everything I would have added has been said.

CBarca wrote:

Lex wrote:London have Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham as well as some small teams like QPR and Tottenham all in the Premier League atm

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

Understandable, most Sp*rs fans I know have reading and comprehension difficulties too

CBarca wrote:

Lex wrote:London have Arsenal, Chelsea, Fulham, West Ham as well as some small teams like QPR and Tottenham all in the Premier League atm

Sorry I can't make out what you are saying all the way from 4th place.

lmao good one

El Shaarawy wrote:

rwo power wrote:My home team is my hometown's team, so it is right around the corner. If I'd want to go to a Schalke match, I'd have to drive only 15 or so kilometers, to Dortmund it is 40km, to Düsseldorf 30km, to Duisburg it is 17km and there are even a couple more clubs within 1 hour by car or train.

Well you certainly live conveniently rwo! +Germany's no speed limit highways, i bet you arrive their before the players lol

The "no speed limits" on the motorway are purely theoretical. If you want to drive by car to work or to big events like a football match, you usually don't go faster than a person walks. Especially the A40 is known as the longest parking lot in Germany

But then, as we Germans are an inventive lot, all football tickets automatically come with free rides in buses and trains to the stadiums and back, so most people actually go by buses or trains. This is especially advisable if you like to drink a beer or two in the stadium as drinking and driving doesn't mix.

By the way, as comparison to the US map above, here you can see the map of the German Football clubs of 1st, 2nd and 3rd division:

(Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Fussball-Bundesliga_Mannschaften_je_Ort_in_Deutschland_2012-2013.png - there you can also see the distribution in the 4 last seasons, and they have a high res map there, too)

My team fell off the map after the relegation to the 4th division last season

rwo power wrote:

El Shaarawy wrote:

rwo power wrote:My home team is my hometown's team, so it is right around the corner. If I'd want to go to a Schalke match, I'd have to drive only 15 or so kilometers, to Dortmund it is 40km, to Düsseldorf 30km, to Duisburg it is 17km and there are even a couple more clubs within 1 hour by car or train.

Well you certainly live conveniently rwo! +Germany's no speed limit highways, i bet you arrive their before the players lol

The "no speed limits" on the motorway are purely theoretical. If you want to drive by car to work or to big events like a football match, you usually don't go faster than a person walks. Especially the A40 is known as the longest parking lot in Germany

But then, as we Germans are an inventive lot, all football tickets automatically come with free rides in buses and trains to the stadiums and back, so most people actually go by buses or trains. This is especially advisable if you like to drink a beer or two in the stadium as drinking and driving doesn't mix.

By the way, as comparison to the US map above, here you can see the map of the German Football clubs of 1st, 2nd and 3rd division:

(Source: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:Fussball-Bundesliga_Mannschaften_je_Ort_in_Deutschland_2012-2013.png - there you can also see the distribution in the 4 last seasons, and they have a high res map there, too)

My team fell off the map after the relegation to the 4th division last season

Very good, thx for the map. It's interesting to reference another map in comparison. Are the areas that aren't really populated football-wise less populated in general or not really? Obviously not hamburg or Berlin but the others?

barca 2011 wrote:Very good, thx for the map. It's interesting to reference another map in comparison. Are the areas that aren't really populated football-wise less populated in general or not really? Obviously not hamburg or Berlin but the others?

Well, considering the fact that in Germany about 6.5 million people play in about 27000 football clubs, you can imagine that there would be many more dots on the map if you'd add the 4th division and lower teams. The problem is that the competitive situation is very strong and there are only few teams that can actually make it to the higher echelons (18 clubs in the Bundesliga, 20 each in 2nd and 3rd division).

I found a map that shows the distribution of all Regionalliga (4th division) teams in 2012/13 here:

Source: http://www.kicker.de/news/fussball/regionalliga/startseite/571884/artikel_alle-regionalligateams-im-kartenbild.html

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