Soccer rarely takes center stage in the Denver sporting landscape.
But Thursday night, for one night, the heart of sports in Denver wasn’t located downtown or anywhere near I-25.
Eyes turned instead to Commerce City, to brand-new Dick’s Sporting Goods Park, as the MLS All-Star Game brought Landon Donovan, Cobi Jones and, yes, even David Beckham to Colorado.
It was quite a show – from the game’s prelude, featuring a performance by the band Kinky and the traditional march of the starting lineups onto the field, to the end of the game, which the all-stars won 2-0, thanks to Juan Pablo Angel and Juan Toja. Both scored first-half goals to pace the all-stars against Celtic FC, a legendary team from Scotland.
But the loudest cheers and biggest buzz came for a man who hasn’t played an MLS game yet, although he did take the field briefly at halftime to a rousing cheer that circled the stadium.
And even though the first half featured plenty of rain, the 18,661 fans present kept cheering, for a sport finally in the Colorado spotlight.
