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After 16 years, international soccer finally returned to the Detroit area on Friday night.
The new owners of the Pontiac Silverdome convinced two important European clubs to be their guests for the Match of the Titans. While AC Milan and Panathinaikos have huge followings in their home countries, nobody could predict what kind of draw they would be in Michigan.
Local soccer fans gave an emphatic answer to that question. With a large, unexpected walk-up crowd, final attendance came in at 30,514.
The promoters could certainly pat themselves on the back. This game could easily have been an opportunity lost. In an economically challenged area, ticket prices started at $30 and went up steeply from there. Imagine the kind of crowd that would have shown up with the top price not exceeding $50 and more family-friendly prices for seats in the far corners of the building?
Plenty of the fans attending were too young to remember the 1994 World Cup, if they were even alive then. That youthful exuberance will be what pushes the campaign to bring in more soccer games and maybe one day a Major League Soccer team.
As for the teams, they did not disappoint on a heavy field that slowed the play. Both managers put strong sides out to start the game. AC Milan featured three members of Italy’s 2006 World Cup winning side in Gennaro Gattuso, Gianluca Zambrotta and Alessandro Nesta. Panathinaikos responded with members of Greece’s national team, including Giourkas Seitaridis and Kostas Katsouranis, and three French internationals in Djibril Cisse, Sidney Govou and Jean Alain Boumsong.
AC Milan played its usual style -- controlling possession with short passes -- but failed to stretch the Panathinaikos defense sufficiently