The BBC are giving this a bit of a kicking… also a snide comment about Chelsea fans in attendance 
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It’ll be interesting to see what sort of hangover these clubs taking part experience next season - from our perspective City and Chelsea most of all. You feel like having to continue to play competitive games while most other players are on holiday will have to have some sort of knock-on effect.
Which hopefully plays into our hands, of course.
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Why the fuck would you ask LAFC to play group games in Atlanta? This is the decision of an org who drastically over estimated the interest in this stupid tournament
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Watching matches in the USA feel like watching pre season friendly’s.
However….i think the pointy end of this tournament could be good. Hoping some of the South American teams compete with the Euro heavyweights.
Watching Boca Benfica does look quite lively to be fair.
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Lively is the word I think refs in the PL have it easy the boca players hound the ref relentlessly for every decision and Benfica will be lucky to have many players left after the kicking they got. But the constant rolling around as if they have been shot in the face when the tackle is lower down and so on and so forth.
Boca just horrible to play against.
As for the hounding of refs…players would see red cards quickly doing that in the PL.
Terrible advert for the beautiful game. Not just this match, the whole lot.
Infantino…dick.
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I’m loving all these pictures of empty seats.
It’s embarrassing, and you’d be hard pressed to think of a more worthy recipient than FIFA.
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Boy was I happy to see Benfica equalise and suddenly the Boca players remember to play football make no mistake they have talented players but they spend their time arguing with the ref and picking a fight when defending a corner. And thankfully it is 10 against 10.
It was exhausting to watch never mind playing and it is not very often I feel sorry for the ref but I do and he deserves a strong brandy after the game.
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One decent thing about MLS teams is a fair few have the pride flag in their supporter bases. Must really annoy the old dick cheese
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Not being racist is politically neutral position. It’s the actual racism that is political, and presumably a politics that they aren’t proud of.
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Street price on some of these tickets is now reportedly below $5, with the only market at all being for good seats. No one is even bothering with the nosebleeds.
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Shame.
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Yet when Liverpool (or other big clubs) go on a far east/australian etc tour, they can play at sellout venues and tickets have been resold way above original prices.
Great work Infantino
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Doesn’t bode very well for the World Cup. I wouldn’t want to come to watch Chelsea but clearly the ambition was to fill a 70,000 seater stadium to capacity and to get 26,000 isn’t great. I’m amazed there was 26000 but its not a good advert for football in general.
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I doubt there were actually 26 000 attendees. Images I saw suggest nowhere close to one third capacity, the upper tiers were completely empty. That 26 000 figure is probably how many tickets were in circulation.
The fact that DHS/ICE announced they would be targeting the venues probably did not help sales.
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It is astonishing to see the difference in reception. They have made an official tournament somehow less interesting and valuable than the summer series featuring Brighton and Villa.
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I read that the upper tier had been closed for the match.
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That is often the case. Before Orlando City moved to their smaller dedicated stadium (approx 26,000 capacity) it played in the old Citrus bowl that had a capacity somewhere in the 60s. They only sold tickets to the upper bowls a handful of times a year knowing it was only a handful of special games did they have the potential to fill the lower bowl and require spill over into the upper tier.
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Might have been best to run this in MLS stadiums
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