Photo: Perfect Playing Conditions

Oughta make post-goal sliding celebrations a lot easier…

On another note, I haven’t noticed anyone saying anything about the quality of the pitches, but of the few games I’ve seen, they’ve been terrible. At first I thought they were putting the women’s teams on second tier playing fields (and was pretty annoyed), but then I caught the men’s USA-Holland game which also featured large brown patches, holes, and muck. The players look like they can hardly run when they’re spending half the time concentrating on not tripping, sliding, or stumbling. With all the fuss over elevating Olympic footie as a worthwhile use of a player’s time, the least they could do is maintain an adequate and safe surface to play on, equal to the attention shown other events.