Columnist Nick Green has written 100 Percent Soccer
since 2005. A
native of England, he began writing about soccer in
the mid-1980s and in 2000 permanently exchanged a seat
in the stands for one in
the press box. He lives six miles from Carson's Home
Depot Center, home of the Los Angeles Galaxy, Chivas
USA and the training headquarters for U.S. Soccer.
Married to a long-suffering soccer widow, he has a cat
named Pele.So. Cal Sunday Soccer Gameday
Both Chivas USA and the Galaxy play today, with the Goats on the road at noon in Denver and the Galaxy kicking off in Carson at 5 p.m. against the Houston Dynamo.
Because the Columbus Crew lost to the Wizards Saturday, Chivas USA can clinch a playoff berth with a win today.
Thumbnail previews of both games are here.
Here's the view from Houston and why the Dynamo will root today for Galaxy rivals Chivas USA.
KROQ held the "LA Invasion" at the HDC Saturday and the state of the turf is always an issue after concerts.
AEG put together a guide to the conversion process for the concert and the subsequent return of the grass field. Here's an edited version: There's not much margin for error:
The four-day, 24-hour a day, 100+ person field crew process began immediately following the Thursday Chivas USA-Galaxy and ended by 3:30 p.m. today.The turf protection system included 100,000-square-feet of Terrafloor (for 10,000 standing-room tickets on the field) and 10,000 square feet of Terrafloor2 and Enkamat Plus to better protect areas enduring the majority of field stress (the stage area/south endline).
Underneath the stage area, Enkamat is laid under the T-2 to allow the grass to breathe. The T-2 plastic surfaces are denser than the regular Terrafloor to endure more stress.
In preparation for conversion, the field was sprayed three times in the past week with biostimulant, calcium and potassium nutrients from Floratine Products Group to help combat the stress during the concert, and speed-up the recovery post-concert. This process is a pre-concert and post-concert program that The Home Depot Center does in preparation for every concert.
Other preventative measures included spraying the field with Fungicide to prevent disease from developing while the field was covered.
No resodding was done to field prior to Sunday’s Galaxy’s game, however, we spend hundreds of thousands of dollars resodding portions of the field throughout the year.
A quick summary of Saturday's MLS and Women's World Cup action is here.