Mike Petke was there, in the stadium he'll call home next season, looking down at the last piece of beautiful Kentucky Bluegrass being laid down in Red Bull Arena Tuesday morning, but he still couldn't believe it.
"I'm brainwashed, I'm still seeing turf right now," the veteran defender said. "Until I actually go down there and feel it, I'm not going to believe it. While Giants Stadium was good to us and was our home for so long, just to have not only the stadium and the grass, knowing that we won't be running on rock-hard concrete anymore in front of sparse crowds, is just an overwhelmingly great feeling."
Indeed, while the Red Bulls wrapped up a dismal 5-19-6 season on Saturday night at Giants Stadium, the next time they play a Major League Soccer game it will be at Red Bull Arena. That's enough for Petke, who joked he's heard about this construction since his rookie season, to be counting down the days until March 27, 2010.
"This is the six-week announcement since 1998," he said. "It's been the longest six weeks of my life. It's actually here, the vision and dream they had is realized, it's unbelievable. It's not only great for the players, for the Red Bulls and the community."
For Juan Pablo Angel, the 25,000-seat soccer-specific stadium will be the home field he said he's lacked since he entered the league.
"I was probably the biggest critic of Giants Stadium since my first day here," the Red Bulls captain said. "I never liked it, I never liked the surface, I never liked the atmosphere, apart from the L.A. game in 2007. That was the only decent atmosphere we ever had at Giants Stadium. Apart from that it was a stadium that looked empty. For me personally, I never felt at home. That's why I'm so excited about this. This is home, it's like you're walking into your second house."
Red Bulls managing director Erik Stover said he expects the entire stadium to be complete by mid-February, in time for a few soft openings in advance of the MLS season opener against the Chicago Fire.
"The seats are going in now," Stover said. "I think we'll have the lower bowl finished before the year is out and we started very early on the upper bowl. We'll be substantially complete, meaning pretty much the building is done, around the end of January."
Stover said the playing surface cannot be seen from anywhere but the seats, which will be extremely close to the field. That was done for a reason, he said.
"You can't see the field from the club lounge and that was done intentionally," he said. "We want those people in their seats and rooting for the Red Bulls."
Red Bull Arena will be the eighth soccer-specific stadium built in Major League Soccer. But Petke said there's no question which will be considered the best.
"This," he said, "is definitely setting the standard right here."
Dylan Butler is a contributor to MLSnet.com.
