For the first time last week, I did something that all North American soccer fans should do. I attended an MLS rivalry match in a historic venue, one that has seen more meaningful soccer played in it than any of the new, shiny MLS 3.0 Soccer Specific Stadiums™. It is a place both celebrated and derided, even by the fans of the team that play there. It is a monument to ways of past thinking, to American sports culture, and to 1960s highway policy. It is a place where the stands shake beneath your feet when the game gets exciting, where bits of paint and concrete fall into your lap as you sit in faded plastic chairs, and where the atmosphere on a good night is as fantastic as any league in the world. This place is rooted firmly in MLS 1.0; a relic already abandoned for good by two other major sports.
Last of the Dinosaurs: RFK Stadium and American Soccer
Soccer has a long and storied history in America. The US Open Cup will be kicking off its 101st edition next month, making it one of the oldest cup competitions in the world. The U.S. men’s national team was founded in 1885, and achieved its best World Cup finish in 1930. When the U.S. hosted the World Cup in 1994, it was not the beginning of American soccer culture, but the rebirth of it. These facts often surprise most American sports fans, and even many soccer fans under the age of 50.
There are maybe two places left where our collective national soccer history can be felt as a continuity from past to present. Many of the earliest teams in the States played in grounds that no longer exist, or exist only as city parks without even the crudest historical markers. There are no soccer equivalents of Fenway Park or Wrigley Field, facilities that have hosted baseball uninterrupted for over a century. The New York Cosmos’ home at the Meadowlands is now gone. So is the Polo Grounds, home of many early cup finals.
Soldier Field in Chicago may be the only active stadium that hosted a meaningful match over 75 years ago. The first leg of the National Challenge Cup final (The original name of the US Open Cup) was played there in 1928, and it too has to be considered an American soccer Mecca. That stadium on Lake Michigan has hosted Gold Cup finals, World Cup matches (and the opening ceremony), USMNT games, MLS playoffs, and Open Cup finals. It is one of the current cathedrals of American Soccer.
Only one other place can claim an equal or greater influence on the history of the game in America, and it will be demolished long before Soldier Field ever will. It is the home of the most successful team in MLS history, and has hosted more USMNT matches than any other venue in the world. I’m talking about Robert F. Kennedy Stadium, in Washington, DC. RFK is a “can’t miss” stadium for any fan of American Soccer, and it is the closest thing we have ever had to a National Stadium.
When it opened in 1961, RFK was ahead of its time. It was the first of the “Cookie Cutters”- circular stadia designed to accommodate both football and baseball. Though the design was imitated in Atlanta, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Houston, Seattle, San Diego, Oakland, and Cincinnati, the concept would all prove to be less than ideal for both sports. They required huge, collapsible, rolling bleacher sections, temporary pitchers’ mounds, and were criticized by baseball purists for lacking personality and good outfield seating. Football fans lamented the poor sightlines. Urban planners in later decades lamented their locations, usually near the edge of town, surrounded by seas of parking lots and highway interchanges. After 50 years, only 4 of these venues are still standing.
Still, the first cookie cutter has hosted its fair share of soccer moments over the last four decades. The full list is far too long to reproduce here, but some highlights must be mentioned.
Perhaps the first major soccer event held at the facility was the 1980 Soccer Bowl, where 56,768 fans watched the New York Cosmos win the fourth of their their five championships. The Washington Diplomats played their NASL matches at the stadium, and moved next door to the Armory to play indoors when the league folded.
In 1994, RFK hosted five World Cup matches, including a knockout round match between Spain and Switzerland. The next year it saw one of the USMNT’s biggest victories over Mexico, a 4-0 beatdown in the U.S. Cup.
The 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta used venues all over the southern U.S. to host matches, and RFK was one of them. The United States’ Group A played at RFK, and though they didn’t win the group, their 1-1 draw with Portugal was the most attended event in the stadium’s history with 58,012 fans present, outdrawing even NFL playoff games.
RFK has been D.C. United’s home since 1996 and has hosted soccer matches almost exclusively since then, making it the biggest and the oldest soccer-centric stadium in the country. The Washington Nationals MLB team played there for two years starting in 2005, but was never meant to be there long term. In their first year of existence, United won the first double in US soccer history, winning the Open Cup final at RFK. The next year, 1997, they won their second MLS Cup there. In 1998, the team also picked up its only CONCACAF Champions’ Cup title at home, defeating Toluca in front of their home supporters. And D.C.’s supporters have been some of the pioneers of the league, creating a raucous home field advantage since the early days of MLS. The bouncing temporary bleachers are now legendary in MLS lore, because they are the section where the Barra Brava stand, sing, and bounce, just feet from the touchline.
RFK also hosted the 2000 and 2007 MLS Cup finals, and 2 MLS All Star games, including the bizarre 2004 doubleheader featuring the 1994 US World Cup team.
The stadium has also been the backdrop for important moments in the women’s game in North America. The 1996 Olympics also hosted three women’s group stage matches at RFK. The first match in the history of the WUSA was played there, and the 2003 Women’s World Cup played six matches in DC, including a big 3-1 victory for the USWNT over Sweden.
The senior US Men’s National Team has played more matches at RFK Stadium than any other place in the world, and some pundits, including Bill Simmons and Taylor Twellman, have called for the stadium to be named our National Stadium or pointed out that it already has functioned as one. Some of the greatest moments in USMNT history have come here, as well as some of the lowest moments. In 1998 World Cup qualifying, the States beat Guatemala in front of 30,000 fans, and tied Jamaica in front of over 50,000 in a crucial Hexagonal match. 22,000 fans saw the US beat Panama 6-0 in 2006 World Cup qualifying, and the US repeated the drubbing 6-1 versus Cuba in a 2010 World Cup qualifying match. The Yanks have won both Gold Cup games played at RFK, against rivals Honduras and Jamaica. They also secured a big 2-2 draw against Costa Rica in 2010 qualifying. Even during darker times for the national team, RFK always provided good crowds for soccer, including well over 30,000 fans for most matches in the 1990s, such as the US team’s 1-0 upset of Argentina in 1999. The US Soccer Centennial match against Germany in 2013 was played in front of a capacity crowd, and as the exciting 4-3 upset unfolded, the commentators on ESPN couldn’t help but wax poetic about how RFK deserved to hold the historic celebration. To this date, the US senior Men’s team has only lost three matches hosted at RFK, and two were friendlies.
Still, all good things must come to an end. The first thing I noticed when I climbed out of the Metro into the sunlight was that huge sections of paint on the stadium’s roof have completely peeled away. The basic maintenance of the huge building has been neglected recently in anticipation of its closing. D.C. United has finalized a plan to move into a new, more intimate venue closer to downtown in 2017. Their once-cutting edge facility has been run down for decades. Owned by the National Park Service, and leased by a quasi-public board, RFK has not broke even profit-wise for years. United are merely tenants in their own stadium, even though they are the sole user of the facility. Naming rights to the stadium were never sold, despite attempts to do so when MLB games were held there.
I finally got my chance to visit this place when D.C. United hosted the New York Red Bulls during a trip I made to the nation’s capital last weekend. Sitting in my seat above the Barra Brava, I looked out over the sold out lower bowl. Sunlight kissed half the seats, leaving the traveling Red Bull supporters in shadow. Some of the seats in the upper sections appeared to be broken. The big screen was something almost hard to see by today’s standards, especially in the glare of the evening sun. But the grass was pristine. It is always pristine.
All around us, fans chattered in anticipation of the kickoff against a hated rival. Families, old men in MLS 1996 hats, young couples with children, tourists from England. People of all races and ages united with one hope. Our section began to bounce rhythmically as the supporters found their voice. As a neutral fan with no horse in the race, I was able to enjoy the spectacle as a tourist. And when Perry Kitchen headed home the first goal, and 20 or 30 full cups of beer were launched into the air all around us, all I could do was soak it in, both literally and figuratively.
MLS fans, especially you who have recently begun to follow the league – do yourself a favor. You have roughly a season and a half to visit RFK Stadium. Do it. One day, when your children are watching Toyota Park and Columbus Crew Stadium being replaced by shiny new buildings, you will know about how things really used to be. When you are being served beers by a drone that you ordered from the touch screen on the seat in front of you and charged to your Amazon account, you will remember the past. Maybe a little part of you will wish that a couple paint chips would fall into your drink, just to remind you of the good old days.
Main Photo: RFK Stadium in 2001, courtesy of meticulous.com
