One hundred and four years ago, Myron Hunt designed and built the Rose Bowl for college football. It’s the best place in the nation for that.
But you know what it’s also really good at? Fútbol.
Some of the greatest games in American soccer history have been played at the hallowed stadium in Pasadena’s Arroyo Seco.
The 1994 FIFA World Cup final, a classic Brazil vs. Italy matchup, was played at the Rose Bowl. After a 0-0 draw through extra time, Brazil defeated Italy 3-2 in a penalty shootout to win its fourth World Cup title.
The celebration afterward in Old Pasadena was equally iconic. I’ll never forget the front-page photo from a rooftop that Walt Mancini took and that we ran epically large of a Brazilian flag filling the whole intersection of Fair Oaks Avenue and Colorado Boulevard that night, held up by ecstatic fans. Olé, olé, olé!
Then there was the 1999 FIFA Women’s World Cup Final of U.S.A. vs. China: In a huge moment for women’s sports and soccer in America, our women defeated China’s 5-4 after another scoreless draw in a penalty shootout in front of over 90,000 fans. Who could ever forget Brandi Chastain’s title-clinching penalty kick, or the way she stripped off her white jersey, raised her fists to the skies and celebrated in her black sports bra.
I was there, with my AYSO-playing 8-year-old daughter Julia, sitting at the very top of the stadium’s north side, just above the goal in which the women had won, in the blistering summer heat, all of us with water-spray bottles equipped with little battery-powered fans in our hands, drenched in sweat and screaming our lungs out.
When the 1984 Olympics went looking for a great pitch on which to stage soccer matches, was it the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum that was chosen? It was not. It was the Rose Bowl, which hosted five matches, including the Gold Medal match, in which France beat Brazil 2-0, and an Olympic Games soccer attendance record was set with 101,799 fans in the stadium.
So where are the eight World Cup matches to be played in the Los Angeles area going to be held? All in SoFi Stadium in Inglewood.
Forget about 100,000 fans, or even the 90,000 that the Rose Bowl is usually set up for these days. More like 70,000, although jury-rigged temporary stands can add another 10,000. And SoFi was purpose-built as an NFL field; radical alterations have to be made for the larger soccer pitch to fit. SoFi’s pitch is artificial turf, which soccer’s governing body FIFA wisely forbids. So real grass has to be laid down atop the fake grass. In order to get up to size, FIFA is eliminating field-level suites in the four corners. Howls from the high rollers!
At SoFi, outside the stadium are massive parking lots. Sure, they’ll let you stash your vehicle there on the hot hardscape, long as you’ve got $150. Tailgating parties are limited to a special section in the lot.
Whereas at the Rose Bowl, the parking lot is the (almost) century-old Brookside Golf Courses, 36 holes of parkland fairways under majestic, shading sycamores and oaks. Booze and barbecues are most welcome there. They rope off the bunkers so the drunks don’t fall in, and the partying couldn’t be better.
The scene couldn’t be more corporate at SoFi. Guess that’s what FIFA wants, anyway.
The president of FIFA, Gianni Infantino, likes to remind the world that his organization has more members than the United Nations. He got his job when he wowed delegates at a convention with a 13-minute speech “that was crisp and commanding,” Sam Knight writes in The New Yorker. “Beginning in English, he switched effortlessly among Italian, German, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.” This is a fellow who knows on which side his bread is buttered. The fellow who you may recall at the World Cup draw ceremony, in Washington, D.C., awarded President Donald Trump FIFA’s inaugural Peace Prize. In other words, an award he made up for the occasion. Infantino says he is surprised when he hears criticism of Trump: “He’s just implementing what he said he would do. So I think we should all support what he’s doing, because I think he’s doing pretty good, right?”
Sure thing, maestro. Just like FIFA’s doing pretty good by abandoning the most historic West Coast soccer venue the beautiful game has ever known in favor of a building with the soul of an abandoned Walmart.
Larry Wilson is on the editorial board of the Southern California News Group.