FCBARCELONA.CAT

01.08.2009 07:16

The Rose Bowl nearly full

David Saura (enviat especial)

UIT more than 80.000 tickets already sold for Barca’s game with the LA Galaxy, The Rose Bowl should be full to receive the European and Spanish treble winners.

LA Galaxy’s home ground at the California State University, The Home Depot Center has a capacity of just 27,000 and was clearly never going to be big enough to house all the fans who wanted to see Europe’s top side in action, so the Pasadena Rose Bowl, which has a 92,000 capacity, was chosen to host the game.

85.000 expected

The authorities are predicting an 85,000 crowd for the game, with 50 dollar tickets still available the day before the match. The chance to see local heroes Landon Donovan and David Beckham taking on Messi, Henry and Márquez, probably the three most famous players in The States, has meant that the seats for the match have been selling at a very healthy pace.

Training at The Rose Bowl

Pep Guardiola’s players had the chance to train at The Rose Bowl for the first time on Friday evening and 4,500 Glaxty fans turned up to watch them. At the same session the club medical services gave Maxwell the okay to play after he’d recovered from muscle problems in his right leg.

Not normally a host to “soccer”

The Rose Bowl stadium was built in 1922 and was the scene of the 1994 World Cup Final, a game watched by 94.194 spectators, the largest ever crowd for a football match in The United States. Since 1982 the Pasadena Stadium has been the home of the UCLA Bruins American Football team and also hosted a number of football matches during the 1984 Olympic Games.

Given the expectation surrounding the game and the fact that the ground does not normally host football, the organizers are advising fans to try and get to the game as early as two hours before kick off and to use public transport.

The game will be broadcast internationally by Fox Sports in Spanish and in English in the States by Fox Soccer Channel.