Tinderbox: Ford Field and the Gold Cup

I got my tickets for the USA-Canada Gold Cup match tomorrow night, and preparations are apace. There’s been a steady stream of interesting pre-match tidbits trickling out.

• Pride of Detroit has a great shot of the rolls of real grass laying on top of Ford Field's FieldTurf.
• Jennifer Hammond reported that Bill Ford, Jr. is a huge soccer fan, and she got a picture of him with the collected USMNT at Allen Park.
• Speaking of which, the Freep has an excellent story about the USMNT's training and warmups at the the Allen Park facilites--including a quote from my favorite player, Clint Dempsey:

  "You have to look at it in a good way -- (we) got kicked up the backside, and (it) humbled us," he said. "Now we have to go out and get the job done.

  "Everybody is going to make sure they're fired up for this game, so we can take care of business."

• Glenn Toran from Mlive.com made a great point: the Canadian fans coming across the border from Windsor for the Gold Cup haven’t had a top-flight soccer club to root for, either. If/when Detroit gets an MLS bid, there’ll be a great natural rivalry with Toronto FC.
• Zac from SideLion Report chipped in his thoughts on soccer in Detroit (and hooked me up with a link--thanks, man!)
• Righting what many percieved to be a roster wrong, Alejandro Bedoya has been called up to replace the injured Benny Feilhaber.