RALEIGH, N.C. — It’s been 12 years since the North Carolina Triangle hosted two massive foreign soccer teams for a stateside exhibition, and in terms of star power, it’ll be hard to ever top a megaclub like Chelsea and (Welcome to) Wrexham when they turn up at Kenan Stadium on Wednesday.
It would be nice if we get the chance again.
There are several reasons why a soccer-crazy area like this often gets overlooked on these money-spinning summer tours, but the lack of a facility capable of holding the kind of crowd these often attract is the biggest one. This contract is a one-off with UNC, but if it goes well — and it’s always a bit of a gamble laying down a temporary sod field over another surface, something the Tar Heels found out to their dismay in the Holiday Bowl — it’s something the school would like to pursue again in the future.
WakeMed Soccer Park has hosted West Ham and Swansea for friendlies against the Carolina RailHawks-slash-North Carolina FC back when that was a second-division franchise, but as nice as that facility is, it’s limited by capacity (10,000) and infrastructure. It’s perfect for NCAA College Cups and this spring’s The Soccer Tournament, not so much for promoters looking to get the most bang for their buck.
Carter-Finley gave it the old college try in 2011 when Juventus played Chivas, but the field is so narrow in the corners — about 35 feet too narrow for soccer — that players had to take corner kicks from a standing position. Throw in a weeknight crowd of 16,124 that almost could have fit into WakeMed, and when N.C. State was approached about hosting another game in 2017, those talks went nowhere.
The proposed Downtown South stadium might have been an answer, in the original privately funded concept, but it never made sense to cannibalize funding for the convention center and PNC Arena to build it, especially after the Triangle’s MLS dreams died.
And that’s the other thing that has changed since then: Charlotte FC’s arrival, playing in a venue now optimized for soccer. The opportunity to play in Bank of America Stadium makes a lot more sense for promoters than trying to figure out a way to do it three hours up the road.
Which leaves, for the moment, Kenan Stadium and its temporary turfgrass toupee. Without the old hedges, it’s 217 feet wide in the corners, just short of the recommended 220. That might not be acceptable for FIFA, but it’s just fine for Chelsea and Wrexham in July.
Of the 13 stadiums on this summer tour, which also includes Manchester United, Arsenal and others, 11 are MLS or NFL venues and the other (Orlando) hosted the World Cup in 1994, so this is a bit of an audition for Kenan Stadium as the UNC athletic department explores new revenue sources.
If this goes well, it could become a summer soccer destination, giving the Triangle a piece of the action that now all goes to Charlotte. There hasn’t been a concert there since Bruce Springsteen in 2003 (The Rising Tour, three years before that song became the Carolina Hurricanes’ Stanley Cup anthem) but that’s something the university is willing to explore.
For the moment, though, this is a one-night special — sold out, on ESPN. If the weather cooperates, it could be one of the Triangle’s more memorable soccer evenings.
If it goes well, it might not be the last.
