Major League Soccer came to Philadelphia just over a year ago and the Union, now in their second season, are based out of Chester, Pa. — a small city about a 45-minute drive from Center City.
However, when visiting MLS teams come to town, rather than traveling from their downtown hotels to PPL Park in Chester, many make use of a closer facility for their pregame workouts — Rhodes Field, home to Penn soccer.
“Sometimes teams will practice at Rhodes Field because of scheduling conflicts at our training facility or PPL Park,” Aimee Cicero, Manager of Communications for the Union, wrote in an email.
Arrangements to practice at the field are often made between the visiting team and men’s soccer coach Rudy Fuller.
“I know a bunch of coaches in the MLS,” Fuller said. “What they’ll typically do is reach out a few weeks ahead of time to me and see if the field is available.”
The fact that professional soccer teams often come to practice at Rhodes says a lot about the quality of the facility and its playing surface.
“I think Rhodes Field is one of the premier playing surfaces on the East Coast right now,” Fuller stated. “It has a reputation now, so when teams come to Philadelphia, unless they have a specific reason why they want to get to PPL Park, many of them contact us to train here.”
Most recently, teams such as the Los Angeles Galaxy — which features stars such as David Beckham and Landon Donovan — and the Chicago Fire have practiced at Penn. In addition to MLS teams, national teams visiting Philadelphia, such as Canada, Panama and Colombia, have also used the field.
Fuller believes the use of the field by professional teams can be very advantageous for recruiting players to come to Penn.
“Good players want to play on a good surface and we certainly let them know that various national teams and MLS teams come here to train,” Fuller explained. “When they come on their visit and we walk them out onto the field, they see why.”
This past weekend, the Union hosted soccer power Real Madrid in a friendly match at Lincoln Financial Field, but Spain’s top club did not train at Rhodes.
“Some teams like Barcelona or Real Madrid, I think, have the financial wherewithal to train at a place like NovaCare, where the Eagles train,” Fuller speculated. “Because they’re going to be here over a longer time frame, they need a facility that has other amenities included.”
Rhodes Field is not the only Penn facility to host a professional team over the past year.
Back in February, the National Hockey League’s Dallas Stars practiced at the Class of 1923 Rink when they were in town to play the Flyers. That, however, was out of necessity, as the Wing Bowl was being held at the Wells Fargo Center that weekend.
The Union resume their league schedule at home on Friday when the Colorado Rapids come to PPL Park, but there are no plans for any MLS teams to practice at Rhodes in the coming weeks
Coach Fuller, however, hopes professional teams will continue to use the field.
“It’s great exposure for Penn and our soccer program to have teams wanting to train in our facility,” he said. “The athletic administration here at Penn has done a lot to upgrade that facility over the past 10 years, and now it’s a facility that people want to train at. It’s a big feather in our cap.”
