As the New York Red Bulls play their final game in Giants Stadium on Saturday, NY Times blogger Jack Bell reviews 10 of the most memorable games seen in the historic venue. "To an international audience, Giants Stadium means soccer in the United States because of the still flickering penumbra of the Cosmos," writes Bell. "It was a playground - sometimes on artificial turf, sometimes on grass - for some of the world's finest players of the past quarter-century."
At number 10, Bell places this past summer's USA vs. Mexico Gold Cup final, on July 26, 2009. Bell writes: "The last major international match at the stadium drew the largest crowd for soccer in Giants Stadium history, 79,156. Mexico thrashed the American team, 5-0, before a mostly pro-Mexico crowd."
Also part of the list, Bell sites the NY Cosmos vs. Argentina, on June 6, 1979, "Perhaps the only time in the history of the game that the reigning World Cup champion (Argentina won as host in 1978) agreed to play a club team in an exhibition." Near the bottom of the list comes the Women's World Cup, on June 19, 1999, when the opening doubleheader brought 78,972 fans to East Rutherford. This event might have been the only time in the stadium's history "that the line for the ladies room was longer than the line for the men's room!"
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