A handful of MLS clubs boast custom facilities while most remain guests at their own practices

Occidental, Azusa Pacific, USC, Loyola Marymount, Rio Hondo, Pasadena City, Cal Tech. The list of former Los Angeles Galaxy training sites has grown each year since MLS kicked off in 1996. Oh, and don’t forget the ominous “Area H.”

While several MLS clubs have spent the past four years field-hopping in search of a permanent training site, the Galaxy has been the most nomadic.

“I’m trying to think of any open space around here ù we’ve probably trained there,” Galaxy defender Greg Vanney said. “There was a time when we would show up to the Rose Bowl and then find out where we were actually going to drive for training,”

“Area H” or Lot H is a grass parking lot outside the Rose Bowl that the Galaxy used periodically during the 1997 and 1998 seasons. Players say they used to dodge glass bottles, ashy fire pits, and ruts when using the plot after UCLA football games. Vanney once stepped on a manhole cover during a session at Lot H and his cleats failed to grip the wrought iron.

“One leg just went out from under me,” Vanney said. “I almost did a groin, but I managed to stay in one piece.”

Fortunately, the Galaxy’s Lot H days are in the past now, but the team still does not have a permanent home. The team trains on the outfield of a junior college’s baseball stadium most days, then uses the Rose Bowl when a fully lined soccer field is needed for team tactics.

But at least the Galaxy has heard very encouraging news concerning training grounds. Club president Tim Leiweke’s March 15 announcement that the Anschutz Corporation is willing to invest in a soccer-specific stadium and training ground makes playing on an outfield easier for a while longer.


Baseball interferes in Miami

Not every club is so optimistic. Dallas, Miami, San Jose, Tampa Bay and the MetroStars are all limited to some degree because they are guests at someone else’s facility.

The Fusion must wait until April 15 for the Baltimore Orioles to finish spring training each season before it can take advantage of the facilities at Fort Lauderdale Stadium, adjacent to it game field at Lockhart Stadium. In the meantime, the Fusion uses a field at Boyd Anderson High School, which on one occasion this spring meant waiting for a baseball game to finish when the team decided to train later than usual.

Newspaper reports said some players were so frustrated that they were contemplating a walkout, but defender Leo Cullen said that was an exaggeration. The team did voice its concerns to general manager Doug Hamilton.

“That was the first time the reality hit that it wasn’t our field,” Cullen said. “It was disappointing, but it wasn’t like anyone said, æthis is league is a joke’ or anything. It was more comical than anything. It was also kind of a wake-up call that we can’t keep doing this every year.

“We’re not upset, we don’t come in and complain about it every day and it hasn’t become an issue. We’ve just said that if there was one thing we would like to be more professional, it would be to have a little bit nicer facilities. They’ve agreed with us and are working to fix that.”


Changing in a trailer

Players around the league unanimously agree that the single most important facet of a training facility is its playing surface. “Having a place to call your own,” as Kansas City’s Peter Vermes put it, follows as a close second on the wish list.

The challenge of finding a high-quality field and keeping it that way through repeated use is one that the MetroStars are finding exceptionally difficult. The team has a place to call its own ù albeit within the campus of Kean University ù in a newly completed locker room, but its field did not fare well this winter.

“It’s not a pro-level surface, that’s for sure,” MetroStars defender Mike Petke said. “At best it’s a high school field ùit’s probably not adequate for a college field. It stinks because we play on nice fields in the league, but in practice you don’t have a good touch on the ball, you never know where it’s going to bounce.”

Dallas used to have problems with the field it uses at the Greenhill private school, especially during the dry season.

“It’s got to be a difficult thing for a school to professionally maintain a field that is being trained on day-in and day-out,” midfielder Ted Eck said. “We wouldn’t see any water for a few weeks and it would harden up and it was difficult for the players because you’d get the shin splints and back aches and things like that.”

The field conditions have improved dramatically this season under closer supervision by club officials, Eck said, but the team still lacks a permanent building of its own.

Chad Deering remembers the first day he reported to the Burn after spending his first six pro years in Germany.

“I didn’t know where the locker rooms were,” Deering said. “I was looking for an entrance door that said æDallas Burn’ or something, and then I finally figured out it was the trailer.”

Working out of portable trailers was something that Vermes experienced in Colorado before the team’s investors splurged to help build a recreation center with the city of Westminster.

“I think players really like routines and the more they can get into a routine, the more time they have to concentrate on the game at hand,” Vermes said. “Guys come earlier and stay later when they have a place that is their own.”


Future looks bright

Colorado and Columbus now have the premier training grounds in the league, thanks to substantial monetary commitments made by their investor-operators and timely partnerships with suburban communities.

The Crew has more exclusive use of its facility, which was a joint endeavor with the village of Obetz, while the Rapids have four fields at their disposal.

“We have a fabulous training room, the equipment room is huge and the players really feel like they have room to relax and spread out,” said Rapids veteran Marcelo Balboa. “In MLS this is probably unmatched.”

D.C. United has the distinction of being the only club in the exact same building in which it began the inaugural season. It is also the only club whose business offices are all at the practice site.

Chicago borrowed a page from D.C.’s book ù United Park was formerly Redskins Park ù by leasing out an NFL team’s former facility and the Fire has more than enough space for daily operations. Kansas City and New England have been able to piggyback on new construction by their respective NFL teams and plan to move into top-flight digs before the end of this season.

Dallas and Tampa Bay are the only two teams still using portable trailers at their training sites, but both are optimistic about finding new homes within the next year by joining with community youth soccer efforts.

The Mutiny is looking at joining Hillsborough County’s new Ed Radice Park, which broke ground this year and will eventually include nine soccer fields.

“It’s been a challenge for us because we’ve had to move to different sites each year,” said Ed Austin, Tampa Bay’s director of operations. “Sometimes the biggest challenge is you find a great surface, but you don’t have an appropriate building … this location should have everything we need.”

Overall, it seems as if the league’s worst nightmares in training facilities are ending. Some teams may have to wait until a higher priority ù soccer-specific stadiums ùcan be resolved, but the trend around the league seems to show a greater commitment to the working environment.

“At first you’re stuck in spots that aren’t the best situation, but everyone’s made do,” Cullen said. “There are a lot of sacrifices that need to be made to get a league off the ground. There aren’t millions of dollars floating around to build new facilities. That’s not realistic.”

As league-owned teams, Dallas and Tampa Bay are the least likely to get an infusion of cash, but the players remain patient.

“I think the way the Burn have gone at it is kind of a smart way,” Deering said. “You don’t want to build a stadium if you’re not going to have everything together. You don’t want to build a nice locker room and then a year or two down the road have to knock it down and build somewhere else. … In all honesty, the trailer is not that bad.

“It has everything you need, the guys take care of it. That’s what I mean ù if they can’t come up with a stadium that has everything there, then just wait. The trailer actually grows on you.”

by Soccer America associate editor Will Kuhns