I wasn't at the tailgate, but I don't agree with any criticisms of the Loyalists during the game. Some of us (myself included) waved our RSL flags before the game (specifically when Pope was introduced) and there were plenty of USA flags in the section as well. Once the game got underway, every chant was for the national team. We didn't even drop our "Loyalists" banners until the USA game ended! If you think we were weak because you couldn't hear us, guess what? We couldn't hear Sam's Army from where we were either. We did have our whole corner singing "America the Beautiful" at one point, and "Dos a cero" was going really well too. Also, props to whomever brought all the yellow cards, a couple of times when we all pulled them out it looked great. I thought it was an unbelievable atmosphere, I can't believe people are finding things to complain about. If you were expecting absolutely no mention of Real Salt Lake IN SALT LAKE CITY, I'm glad you were disappointed, because we love our club team too.
I have seen and heard this complaint over and over again. I don't wish to single out any single person so... if this is a gripe of yours here is my explanantion. I will wear a national team kit to games as soon as there is a USMNT kit in red or Sams decides to go with Blue. I wear red for the USMNT... I actually went out and bought a second RSL jersey so that I would have a red one specific for this game. I thought that is what Sams wanted...A sea of RED. Who gives a damn what jersey it is as long as it doesn't support the team the USMNT is playing. GET OVER IT... RED IS RED...-
I agree with red = red. Some people don't have red USMNT stuff, so the "wear your red" theme takes over. The guy with me didn't have a red jersey, so he wore a red "Copa Mundial" shirt. Same different, it was red, which is supposed to show your support for the USMNT. As for the pre-game chanting stuff. RSL and the local production crew took full advantage of the fact that there was a tailgate going on. They were smart and got in a place where people would be, and they could get them to stand around and make noise. Don't blame the fans for hopping in front of a camera to support their team. Would it have been ideal to have that done somewhere away from where the rest of us were preparing for the US game? Sure I would have preferred it been elsewhere, but it didn't hurt the tailgate in my opinion. This past weekend has me wanting to plan a trip to Hartford...
for me, the game's the only thing that really matters... I give SLC/Loyalists full props for bringin it. I watched the ESPN broadcast when I got home, and you guys did a great job creating an excellent atmosphere in the stadium. I could clearly hear you guys singing when the camera was pointing towards your end - plenty of times the noise you hear on the ESPN broadcast wasn't coming from the SA/US Supporters end. Each end, and sporadically the sections in between, were helping create the type of atmosphere that we should aspire to have at all USMNT games. Well done all: USMNT got the 3 points, you can't ask for much more. There may have been a bunch of different reasons to wear red, but whatever...SLC took the initiative and did it, and did it in numbers. well done, again. wow. someone pointed out to me during the 2nd half that other sections were standing. wow. Hex home games vs. Costa Rica = we always seem to do well. Props to USSF for picking yet another good CR venue (Portland, KC & SLC). Like KC, I was more than pleasantly suprised by the home crowd support. i wasn't planning on going to hartford either...hmmm, damn big-ass country. poco a poco, this will grow.
WHAT IN THE HELL IS YOUR MALUFUNCTION? Did you not just see me praising SLC for the great atmosphere?? Did you not just see me praising the news coverage?? Did you not just see me say that "YOU GET A PASS BECAUSE IT WAS YOUR FIRST GAME"?? Damn man....if you got beef take it with someone who spent 5 paragraphs lambasting you for wearing RSL jerseys, not to a guy that just spent paragraphs defending you! Criminy....
It would seem that you have the malfunction... can you show me where I identified you as some sort of a problem? I missed that part... Why are you being so sensitive? If you did nothing wrong then go on with life... I am going to borrow (and slighty alter) a quote from someone when I say
Never wore a club shirt for a national team game ever. Not when I was in Mexico City, nor in Korea. If it's a double header with the USA and my club team playing, I put the extra jersey in a cargo pant pocket or something.
Well you did use his quote. Anyway, I don't have too much of a problem with what kits you were wearing, since they were red. That's why I didn't make a comment on it. I will say I usually bring my Revs kit in with me for US/Revs doubleheaders, but then again ... we don't have a red kit. But like Ben said, red = red. Unless it's a ManUre kit.
The turf didn't seem to be a problem on Saturday. And while I wouldn't call the atmosphere "hostile," I sure wouldn't say that any of the US players didn't feel at home in the game. While that doesn't necessarily put pressure on the opponents, it sure lifts the pressure from the US players, and I'll take that. They are good enough to take care of business on their own after that. (With this, I'm talking about the general fans - the 38,000 who were there as US supporters but not with either Sam's Army or the Loyalists, or the 1,000 supporting Costa Rica).
Based on the articles I read in the paper on Sunday, it isn't a neat, clean love affair, either - it is one of those sloppy "Do it when you wake up, do it at lunch, try to do it at a smoke break, and do it all night when you get home - skipping dinner" kind of love affairs. Heady stuff, indeed.
I think your last comment about distance is why we don't. And shouldn't. Spread it around - it is, after all, the US team, not New England's team. Other than basically ignoring Texas for practically a decade before playing Houston in '03 and Dallas in '04 (and generally ignoring the middle of the country - KC, Chicago, etc.), they have done a good job of spreading things around.
The alcohol laws certainly need a bit of work, but they're not too much of a problem if you drink good beer (imports) and liquor. Certainly it's a bit weird in the bars (private clubs) but it's not as bad as it once was made out to be. And I even saw evidence of beer and liquor being consumed in the stadium by fans. Mind you it certainly wasn't sold inside the stadium, and probably wouldn't have been condoned by the police, but it was there nonetheless.
Overall, I agree with RS on this. While I agree that we in the US have experiences like Texas A&M, Ohio State, Florida State in gridiron, Duke, NC and others in basketball, etc., the chance of an entire stadium supporting and chanting for a US soccer game is probably not a realistic goal in our lifetime. At least, not for 90 minutes. In Dallas, we had a chant that got the entire stadium involved two or three times a game (had one side chant "Dal-las" and the other side "Burn" - in the same way they do "Texas/Fight" at UT), but that was something done once a half or so. On the other hand, I don't see why we can't make it a goal to have 4,000 active supporters making noise. MLS and the US MNT is still growing its support, and we had close to a total of 1,000 people there on Saturday between the two groups - and we've had 500+ showings before (esp. in Korea). As for the country/club thing - I understand the preference, and recommend it. But you're not going to get 100% agreement on it, and what are you going to do? Tell people they can't stand in The Army because they have on a red shirt that happens to be the only red soccer shirt they have and it also happens to relate to their club? I think not. (Also, fyi, the Dallas folk took off the hoops for the US game and wore the solid red - I would agree that wearing the hoops for the US game would not have been kosher. Personally, I wore my Burn kit because it is hard to change shirts with all that makeup on.) But back on point - Salt Lake was certainly the next step in the development of US support. Not only was it a pro-US crowd, not only were there two different US active support sections (which, I have to admit as much as it would have been great to have all 1,000 of us together, I thought was cool seeing two different huge US flags flying), but it was clearly all about the US. Columbus in Feb '01 was pro-US, but there were solid supporters for Mexico, etc. But in this game, there was a pocket of fans for CR, and the rest was for the US. One more comment about the separate groups - from what I gathered, that was due to logistics as much as anything else - that the Loyalists couldn't exchange all of their seats over to the SA area, and that in part they chose to stay together, which I don't blame them at all for doing.
I mean, you're both right - we're not gonna get 40,000 people singing for 90. That doesn't happen anywhere except Korea. Now, we could get 40,000 + chanting U-S-A for about 30-40 seconds at a time. That would still be pretty sweet.
EGGGGGGGsactly. And that is going to be a LOT easier when we have 4,000 in the south end making noise. So if we take anything from this weekend, it is that the Kool-Aid still works and we just need to try to continue to drum up interest and participation.
At the beginning of the game most of the stadium did chant USA at the same time, sort of. But on at least three different cadences. I was in a spot where a couple of those converged, and it was certainly odd. That band in the SW corner of the stadium did well for those of us in the W section - how did they sound across the stadium?
Some of that co-ordination stuff is just down to the individualistic American culture. There are exceptions, but Americans generally don't really get, or feel they need to get, as much of a sense of community from their sports teams.
The samba band at the top of the stands? I was extremely tempted to join them - quite a few times. Great stuff. (Of course I didn't because I had my own samba band to play in, and we had teams to support, but it was damn tempting. They were really good.)
Club or Country, there is no denying the unmistakeable patriotic passion flowing in the parking lot at the tailgate, the stadium during the US-CR match, and the parking lot and bars after the match at the victory parties. The Sea of Red was amongst the deepest I've witnessed. It showed our passion. Who cares what the writing of the front of the shirt is, as long as the shirt color is red. And if that color changes in the future, who cares what the writing or jersey is, as long as it is the chosen color (probably red forever more) and as long as it is NOT the opposition team's jersey, it shows the same passion. In an ideal world, we would all have US gear. But we don't. And that's okay. Club or country. Whatever. The passion flowed. Heck, I wore a red Bayern Munich jersey. Sue me or shoot me, I sing every song I know and always, always get my section to start a U-S-A, U-S-A chant. I even taught them the "Estadios Unidos" and "Dos A Cero" ones in unison (and on cue) from Sam's Army. Does that mean I have less passion? I don't think so. With that said, I agree with other posters that, yes, there were times at the pre-match tailgate when I had wished some of the RSL chants were turned into more song for the US, but that is a small, small nuance of having such passionate Club fans whose match was next in line. The key here is the passion. It was out in full force. As long as it's not exclusionary and bleeds passion, it's not only fine, it's encouraged (by me). Think about the last time in the US the passion for the beautiful game and our red, white, and blue flowed so fluently and in large numbers. As for getting an entire stadium to sing and chant more than just the simply "U-S-A, U-S-A", this may not happen for years to come unless someone comes up with a cleaver way to teach the fans in attendence, which in itself is a difficult task considering each match is generally hosted in a new/different location than the last. I do not advocted having a single home stadium, as we're simply just too large a nation, but until the average person attending these matches yields, say, 5 caps (read: they become diehards like you and I and have attended enough matches to learn the song), they will never learn the tunes. An interesting idea was done in Chicago last July for the US-Poland friendly, where "direction" sheets, along with a red or white placard and a streamer, were placed at each seat. The "directions" stated to raise the placard at the National Anthem (or some time near then), and toss the streamer at a certain point. Perhaps this can be done for a few, say 3 or 4, songs we sing with a prompting to start at certain times, such as "When US team enters stadium: (sing this song to the tune of...)", "When kickoff starts the game: American the Beautiful (list words)", "At 15th minute"... just an idea. Salt Lake City ROCKED! Nice job Loyalists. Great meeting many of you (Loyalists and BSers) at all the assorted parties and get togethers. See ya in Hartford!
It being their first was part of it. But also so was the fact that the television location for the REAL-DALLAS game was there. That was going to bring out the passion for both sets of fans (as it did). I mean, we're all media whores at heart anyway. And it also showed to the average US fan that MLS has fans as passionate about their teams as the US teams. I think that is important, too.
Agreed. The point I was trying to make but didn't articulate very well is that Club or Country, the passion for our Red, White, and Blue was unmistakeable, it was real, and it kicked a$$. I can certainly entertain a few Club cheers when the passion is about the game, is not exclusionary, and is within our borders... it shows the fever is catching.