Carolina Railhawks-Chivas USA

I might be in love with a USL team, y'all.

I mean, this was like their fourth game ever, so there's not a lot of history there, but they were pretty awesome. And by that I mean mostly they were adorable. (No, I don't know what a Railhawk is.) This was pretty clearly the Chivas B-team, in that I didn't recognize a single player's name, but it was really a good time. It was raining off and on all night, and it did my heart good to see all the slide-tackles and players going for it intensely. After the second goal, the players all came over to the fan section (the end behind the goal) and jumped up and hugged the people standing there, and it was so incredibly cute.

I realize that they're probably not actually going for cute, but too bad. In terms of play, it was pretty solid, but not that great; both teams had trouble keeping possession, but that may have been a factor of the wet field more than anything else. Mostly it was a good time. Since I'm here over the summer, I may try to go to a few more games. It's always hard for expansion teams at first, but they seem to have decent support already. The park wasn't sold out, but it got about 5,000 there, which is pretty good for a Tuesday night, I think. And for what it's worth, there's a fan section with flags and chants and a drum and all that; right now, that all seems a little bit forced to me, but maybe in a year or two it'll feel a bit more organic. Not that anyone besides me cares about that, really, but you know.

Anyway. In conclusion, it was a good time, I wish the Railhawks site had pictures, and I may try to get to a few more games this summer. Oh, tinies. I wish I had defenses against you.