The International Fixture

Do my eyes deceive me?

It looks like all those press releases about steel going up at Red Bull Arena last week weren't just blowing smoke. The Red Bulls finally put up a new Web cam at the stadium's construction site.

It seems like forever since the old Web cam was left up for months as no construction went forward. The team very wisely took that one down, but has finally got the ball rolling again. You can almost start to imagine what this thing is going to look like. (It also appears to be in the flight path for Newark International, so you can see planes flying low through the frame).

I guess you won't need me to drive by and take my inept photos of the site now that you can see it for yourself, but I'll try to check in on it from time to time. In the meantime, we can use this cam to while away the 12 months until the Arena opens.

A tip of the hat to The Offside's Red Bulls blog for the find.

-Tom Meagher

Rubbing salt in the wounds

Here's a startlingly obvious headline from my newspaper this week that reminds us despite all the great strides MLS has made over the past decade (and they have been far greater than many of us could have imagined), the sport still has a ways to go before it's acceptable in this country: Major League Soccer remains unpopular. Ouch.

Stefan Bondy's story boils down his musings in the wake of a disappointing and uneventful Red Bulls/Dynamo match last weekend. It roll-calls a number of the criticisms the league's fans and critics have been doling out for years. The players need to be paid more. The league needs more stars. The calendar, out of sync with much of the rest of the world outside of Scandanavia, should be flilpped to play through the winter and take the summers off for the big international tournaments. Oh, and it implies that the talent pool has dwindled as the league expanded, leading to sad, listless games.

Yes, MLS has some growing yet to do, but at least it's not the MISL. Ha.

In another story today, Stefan sat down with Erik Stover, the new Red Bulls maestro. Perhaps attempting to defuse the immediate criticism about his appointment as the team's new managing director, Stover explicitly said his number one priority is opening Red Bull Park. His entire career has been in stadium management, and he has no experience in soccer. Therefore, he said he'll leave the on-the-field management to Jeff Agoos and Juan Carlos Osorio. Let's hope they're up for it.

- Tom Meagher

Harrison park construction update

Another month has passed, so last week I took a swing by Red Bull Park to check on the progress of construction there. The team's official blog, Red Bulls Reader, did a pretty good job of covering the work that's been done so far, but I thought it couldn't hurt to get a few more photos.

On the sunny and clear Friday morning, there appeared to be a couple dozen hardhats on the job in Harrison. A couple of heavy machines were digging and moving debris around. Concrete and rebar sat around and the new "pile caps" for the concrete foundation were very visible. According to the RBR, workers have poured about 115 of the 300 caps needed to start building up. From the look of it from the street, many more of the holes for the caps have already been dug.

So the short version of my Red Bull Park update: there's definitely a lot of work being done, even if there hasn't been much built yet. It's not quite ready for tailgates, but the team is moving forward after the project languished for so many years.

Click through to the jump to see the photos I shot on Friday.

- Text and photos by Tom Meagher

A park of their own

A couple of days ago, before today's drenching rains blanketed New Jersey, I  took a drive through Harrison for the first time.

I wanted to take a look at the construction site for the American edition of Red Bull Park. Up until a few months ago, the stadium's Web site had a live Web cam streaming images of the construction zone. But, perhaps wisely, the company took the video down because there wasn't much happening.

Now, I can confirm for you that there is indeed a lot of activity happening at the site, even aside from the team's announcements that a new phase of construction has begun.

From the looks of it (from the sidewalk), there are earth movers rumbling around, and excavation is happening. I didn't see any cement trucks, but I imagine they have a little bit of rebar to lay and concrete forms to build before they get to that. Still, after so many delays teasing the Red Bulls' hardcore supporters over the years, its nice to see progress being made. Let's just hope the summer goes well and everything will be on track for the long-suffering New York and New Jersey fans to get a more suitable home for their team next year.

In the meantime, every month or so, I'll take a swing by the Harrison construction site and snap a few photos to let people know how its going. Consider this the jumping-off point.

My only caveat to these pictures is that I'm obviously not a very good photographer. Although its very difficult to see them here, I assure you there were, indeed, construction workers on the job when they were taken Wednesday.

Click through to the jump to see the others.

-text and photos by Tom Meagher