by JAKE NUTTING

While Cosmos Country is waiting with bated breath to find out if the New York Cosmos will win the bid to build their proposed soccer specific stadium on the Belmont site, the team is exploring the real possibility of moving on from Shuart Stadium next season.

Cosmos COO Erik Stover disclosed to Neil Morris on the Inverted Triangle Podcast Thursday night that the possibility of moving on to a new temporary home while they wait to build their own stadium is coming closer to reality every day.

“[Returning to Shuart] is getting less and less likely as everyday goes by,” Stover told Morris. “The challenges there are very significant. Just scheduling the regular season is almost impossible. We had to play two games in Brooklyn last year at a minor league baseball stadium, not a bad stadium at all, but Brooklyn and this part of Nassau County are two very different places… The feedback, the research we’ve done with our fans, they don’t really like [Shuart]. I mean it’s not bad, but it’s not what they envisioned us being in long term.

“So the challenges are serious. Our team plays very attractive soccer which is difficult to do on this field. We are looking for an alternative.”

The main obstacle to the Cosmos leaving Shuart up until this point has been the lack of viable options that meet the requirements necessary for fan experience and the division standards set by U.S. Soccer.

However, the team’s search for a new venue in the near future has received an assist from an unlikely sourse — NASL expansion side Rayo OKC. The newcomer has implemented a relatively new turf system at its home facility that allows them to cover up unsightly American football lines for gamedays and also provides a better playing surface than the one already installed.

“I spoke to [Rayo OKC Managing Partner Brad Lund] about it, he said he liked it very much, league officials have said the same,” Stover said. “I’ve talked to players that have played on it and some of them have said it’s among the best synthetic fields they’ve ever played on, and they were very concerned and skeptical going into it.”

The system in question is from a Canadian company called Nexxfield, and it allows teams to lay rectangular panels of artificial turf on top of an existing surface. The panels are connected using a system of Velcro strips. As hard as that last point may be to believe, the Nexxfield does meet or exceed many of the requirements from FIFA for artificial surfaces.

The feasibility of Nexxfield is something that Stover says the Cosmos will be researching closely over the year as they determine their next move, but it’s already opened up sites that previously seemed to be non-starters, such as their current training facility Mitchell Field or even Fordham University’s facility.

“We train at Mitchell Field, we have a very good relationship with the county executive and the workers here at Nassau County,” Stover said. “It’s approximately a 10,000 seat stadium with a track around it. We don’t necessarily like the track, and it has American football lines, soccer lines, lacrosse lines, logos, you name it. It’s not even a good field to practice on, let alone play on. But now you put [Nexxfield] on top of it, you can widen the field. It looks only like a soccer field. That puts Mitchell Field into the discussion, and it opens up the discussion for Brooklyn again. It opens up the discussion for places like Fordham. So to have that option, to be able in a relatively affordable way to put a field out and take it out within a 24 hour to 36 hour window, and have it be better than the surface it goes on top of is pretty revolutionary.”