BOISE -- It has been hard to ignore the growing popularity of soccer in the United States, and coming up this summer we will be able to see how strong of a foothold it has in the Treasure Valley.
In conjunction with Jaialdi, a Basque festival held every five years in Boise, a match is in the works that will feature a professional team from the Basque country.
They will play at Albertsons Stadium. But not on the blue turf.
As the winter season winds downs Cloverdale Turf Farm is getting ready for the "new lawn" season.
But the sod being cut on this day will be nowhere near your backyard.
"We only cut it this thick for a stadium job," said Steve Roth with JB Instant Lawn.
That stadium is Albertsons Stadium, home of the Boise State Broncos and the blue turf, which will soon become actual bluegrass again, following the lead of stadiums across North America.
"Houston, Toronto, Meadowlands, New Jersey -- all across the country they are doing this, covering up the fields with natural grass," said Brad Veibell, JB Instant Lawn.
Hold on! It will only be for a few days in July as Boise will be host to a professional soccer team from the Basque country playing a friendly against a major league soccer team from the Northwest.
"It's going to be awesome because it's going to be an all-Basque club," said George Totorica with Cloverdale Turf Farm.
Totorica has been growing this turf since the fall of 2013 in preparation for the upcoming match.
"We've got about a five, six-acre plot kind of plotted out," he said.
As soon as George heard about the possibility of this game he and Cloverdale Turf wanted to be involved.
"Number one my Basque heritage, and bringing over a Basque club from probably the best leagues in Europe, La Liga, is tremendous because of the Basque population in Boise, and how proud they are of Boise," said Totorica.
So for the next four months this turf will be treated with kid gloves.
"The important thing is that stays together, see when I'm pulling on that, I can barely even pull it," said Totorica.
But today they are testing to see how it will cut, carry and roll back out.
"My role today is to make sure this is going to work," said Roth.
Roth has done nearly 20 of these projects.
"We've done one in CenturyLink Field, we've done one in Utah and we've done one in Canada. They're all different," said Roth.
His company out of Oregon has patched pitches for Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid, even a U.S. qualifier.
"But this is definitely more exciting, especially for the size of the community, this is going to be a big deal," said Veibell.
It's going to take about two acres of sod. That's about 500 of the 4-foot by 48-foot rolls. And it will all have to look and feel natural.
"The players are looking for a surface that is stable, it has a good ball speed, ball speed is probably the biggest issue that comes up, they want to make sure it's moving fast enough and playing well," said Veibell.
"So you're pretty sure this will work, right?" asked News Channel 7.
"Absolutely. Looks like it's going to do really well," replied Roth.
The field crew will transplant the turf a couple of days before the July 29th match.
The teams have yet to be finalized but we do know it will be one of the two professional Basque teams. Who their opponent is has yet to be determined.
