After going to Colorado of all places and then not actively rooting against the Flounders I'm beginning to doubt your commitment to our fan base. /s
Hold up. I was actively cheering on Toronto along with everyone else in the room. But, you know, IT WASN'T RSL.
As long as you repented of your sin of cheering for any other team than RSL and paid the required STH seat upgrade, then I guess it's OK.
I agree about the supporter groups. They're terrible overall. I wish we could just remove the drums, because at least then it's easier to actually hear the chants. I was in section 4, and half the time couldn't even tell what the chant was until it was over, thanks to those stupid drums. If we had a unified south end with no drums, it'd be a lot easier to join in with some of the chants.
I actually like the drums. It adds atmosphere. If people are going to complain about drums, then the damn cool kids in Sec.35 need to step it up.
If the drums were somehow half the volume, possibly less, then I'd agree. The problem with the drums is that it's pretty much all you can hear. I literally cannot hear anything from the north end when they're chanting, and I can only sometimes make out what the south end is doing, and I was barely a few sections away. Outside of a couple of their chants, I usually couldn't tell what the chant was. Hell, I can barely even tell that La Barra is chanting as well. They're just far too loud. I'll take the majority of a stadium joining into a chant over some stupid drum beat any day. I mean, they do try and chant. Nobody can hear it. That could be part of the reason why they don't chant as often now. If nobody can hear you to join in, then what's the point? At least the lower rows of the south end seem to be more coordinated, so they do chant pretty much all game. But once again, outside of a couple of chants, you typically cannot tell what they're chanting, especially from the north end. The drums drown out everything. At this point, we might as well all grab vuvuzelas and buzz for the whole game.
Section 26 guy here. The drums make it really hard to coordinate. Drums by themselves can actually help. However, La Barra is not much interested outside of a few chants here and there. It's tough. 35 and we try to go back and forth as we can, but the way the sound travels in the stadium makes it hard. One section typically starts running out of steam by the time the other section can finally pick out the cheer over the drums. Honestly, I feel like most of the SGs are getting over their petty differences. I'm not going to go stand in the South Goal because thats not how I like to experience the game. However, I'll try to spread the "cheer" in 26 as best I can.
I sit in Section 25 which coincidentally is right next to Section 26 and 24 for that matter. Weird. Anyway, I really appreciate the effort that is put in by Section 26. It does seem though that they have run out of a little steam, same with 35. That being said I will take those two sections over what goes on in the South end every day of the week and twice on Sunday games. It's kinda sad, but oh well. It ain't changing anytime soon.
It'd be nice if we could take a poll of both of those sections. I have a feeling the lack of steam is due to the drums. I can understand not wanting to do some of the chants that the south end does, but I feel like half the chants are something that would be pretty great if the whole stadium was into it. Shame nobody can hear them until it's too late.
Here is the thing - the drums dont show up to every game. For whatever reason, LBR doesn't show up to some games (typically weekday) and it opens the door for those of us that don't like them to take a chance. What happens? It's still disconnected. Even worse, more often than not when the drums aren't there the game has this weird quiet vibe to it. If for nothing else, the drums provide a constant rhythm/noise to RSL games. I'm not going to say drums over everything, but I've been to games where the drums aren't there: you end up missing them for long stretches.
That's called consistency, how can you expect supporters groups on opposite sides of the stadium to coordinate consistent chants out of the blue? It takes time and a consistent knowledge of when/how to do it. If the drums are there banging away 90% with 10% of games randomly interspersed with know drums you can't possibly expect the supporters groups to work together perfectly.
fair argument for stadium wide chants. My point here, however, is more to the point that the rest of the SG's don't offer consistent noise themselves throughout a game. For all the bitching that LBR makes it hard to coordinate with others, they at least keep a steady rhythm of noise. Section 35 and 26 will go mute for really long stretches of time during games without drums. I agree that LBR makes it hard to get stuff going stadium wide, but I think the drums and the group are used as scapegoats to a bigger issue that the rest of the SG's simply don't have a consistent voice/enough songs to actually last 90 minutes.
I agree. Quite the catch 22. From what it looks like the FO isn't, or at least hasn't, stepping in to try and find a fix or solution. You would think that after 12 years it would have organically fixed itself which is what the FO seems to be waiting for to happen. At this point it aint. I certainly don't know what will fix or bring it all together but I know where I would start. It has to start with the South end. There needs to be one voice coming from that section of the stadium. Whether or not they still let them have their 47 different groups or not matters little if they can come together. If the can't because their 47 different little groups then the FO needs to step in and find a motivating option. Maybe it's saying, "ok, you don't want to work together to become something that actually looks like, sounds like and works together like an actual supporters section then go ahead and pay the same for your seats as the rest of the comparable sections in the stadium." I think they should be paying more anyway just because they're probably the worst supporter section in MLS. Is there worse? The south end is $80 to $160 cheaper per seat per year than the seats in the north end and $240 - $320 less than the straw stealing sections right next to them. Just a thought.
WE HAVE HOT DOGS!!! I don't think this is something RSL needs to fix. I get your point that it's broken and painful to watch, but I don't see any course of action that the club takes that doesn't ostracize some fans. Letting the idiots figure out on their own is painful, but it can't be just us outsiders that recognize the flaws. I will always find it ironic that the road RSL support is more coordinated/agreeable than the home RSL support.
At the risk of derailing this discussion and speaking of visiting groups, what is that weird scarf floppy thing the Portland fans do during the anthem? It's really annoying in that it catches my eye every freaking time (and therefore annoyingly effective).
I don't know what the answer is here, but I think this comment is accurate. I guess my take is, I must be a terrible fan because singing and chanting for 90 minutes plus seems exhausting. I like it when you can feel the cheering building in anticipation when a cross is sent in or a nice pass is made into the offensive third. I don't really want that organic feel of excitement to be drowned out by constantly scripted singing. That, to me, would be the vocal equivalent of vuvuzelas. At the same time, the only time I think the entire stadium being deathly quiet would be cool is when the opposing team is taking a PK. That would be a real mind game, IMO.
It's their... thing. I dunno. Their the TA, they're quirky You're not claiming to be "ultra" supporter like those that designate themselves as a SG. So expectations aren't that you'll sing the whole time. Not EVERYONE at a Timbers Game is part of the TA. Not everyone at Seattle games is part of the ECS. That's the difference. You know that's not for you, so you've moved out of it. Our SG's want the "cool" card of being a SG but seemingly want to be what that entails. Though, now I'm getting into a lecture on how to fan and that's just dumb of me
Honestly, I think part of the problem stems from the start. We should've kept with just one supporters group. Having 17 different groups was always going to cause things to be disjointed. I think without the drums they could probably organically start to become more unified in some of the chants over time, but it's hard to when there's little opportunity to hear each other. I don't know what the overall solution is, but it does suck when you want to join in and can't tell which chant is going on. I'm also fine with more quiet stretches of the game. Not every club is loud all game, and that's fine.
eh, I don't love being at a professional game and being able to hear the players on the field yelling at each other. That weirds me out
It is nice when it's quiet enough that a fan can yell, "Stop passing the ball to Yura!*" and the players can hear it. *Came somewhere out of the North section during the home loss to Atlanta.
Ha ha ha ha I remember actively cheering for Atlanta during that game because they were fun and we were early 2017 RSL
Atlanta gets Nagbe from Portland for quite a large bit of cash We like to talk about how dangerous our front four can be - even with a false 9 - here at RSL. Some (myself included) have said we might have the most exciting/lethal front four in the league. This isn't the case anymore. Atlanta has Martinez, Almiron, Villaba, and now Nagbe up top. That's ********ing crazy. We need to get a legit 9 asap
But sometimes the quiet times make for great heckling! I'll always remember the time me and my brother were yelling at Conor Casey about his poor shooting to the point of him finally acknowledging us. Shortly after he shanks a shot over the bar from like 10 ft out and gets subbed out not too log after. We probably didn't have a real effect on him, but that whole sequence playing out was cracking us up.
I dunno. Nagbe is very talented, but receives some (deserved) criticism for being too passive. It will be interesting to see if Tata can coach that out of him. If not, this is going to be a very expensive acquisition that may not pan out.
A lot of that criticism comes from people wanting Nagbe to be an attacking mid while he's more of a deep lying player maker. With the talent in front of him at ATL, I think he'll get more slack to do his thing.