How tall is Lucho? Matan isn’t just short, which isn’t really an issue, it’s that he isn’t thick. Some of the greatest players were short, Maradonna was 5’ 5”.
I have a question for Chris @LaMacchia. IIRC, in previous editions of HiR at TQL Stadium, sections 223 (“east” of the scoreboard) and 224 (“around” the scoreboard) were the designated away sections where Crew fans sat. Last night, it kinda seemed like we didn’t “have” a section of our own. 223 appeared mixed, and a lower block of 224 was all Cinci fans. We were in 225 (which I thought used to be for Crew staff and families), which was mixed also. TBH, I didn’t check Nordecke re: tix for the match; I bought them off SeatGeek in early August. I’m wondering what the deal was, mainly for future reference. Thank you in advance!
FCC screws with the seating intentionally to try breaking up the Crew's visitor section into smaller pockets. They'll tarp off rows randomly, put people on opposite sides of the scoreboard, and mix in home supporters in different rows of 223-225. They also enforce assigned seating, limit the number of banners that can be brought in, and jack up prices above what is normal and reasonable for away allotments. It's all bullshit. No other team does it, and I don't think FCC does it for any other visiting opponent either. It's so bush league that when the Nordecke reported it to the Crew FO last year, they intentionally worked to make the experience for FCC supporters as miserable and expensive as possible for HiR in Columbus.
The only legitimate reason to have away supporters in assigned seating would be to pinpoint troublemakers. "Bottle thrown from section 223, mid-row." They can go to the video and ID the culprit. This should only happen as sanctions for a previous incident. Anything else would be ridiculous and juvenile.
That's not the only reason. Consider this: They don't block off the entire section so that when one of their STMs shows up and says "that's my seat" the visiting supporter can't say "This is a GA section." The only thing that @ColumbusFTW left out to answer @TKyle's question is that, due to some meddling by they Independent Supporters Council, host clubs are only required to offer 200 tickets to visiting supporters. That explains the drop from 1500 tickets we had at Nippert to the 200 we had this past weekend. Thanks, I hate it.