It’s May 1999. Encouraged by the Chicago Fire’s double-winning campaign the season before, American soccer fan and MLS skeptic Joel Piktel attends a rematch of the previous year’s MLS Cup final with friends at Soldier Field.
Snagging prime midfield tickets, Piktel and his friends grab a few beers and find their seats in a family-oriented section of the stadium. Once D.C. United and the hometown Fire kick off, however, it quickly becomes clear the increasingly rowdy group and their style of support simply isn’t a fit for their neighbors. Fire forward Jerzy Podbrozny’s goal just before the break is the final straw.
“We probably went a little beyond what the audience around us was willing to accept,” Piktel remembers. “Security came and kicked us out of the section and as we were being escorted away, up walked [former Fire President] Peter Wilt, who asked what was going on. Instead of having us kicked out, we were escorted to Section 8.”
Having found their element among a mixed group of 40 to 50 Polish Ultras and Barn Burners, the group was treated to a back-and-forth second half that saw the team trade leads and red cards before Chris Armas and Josh Wolff swung the comeback in the Fire’s favor for a 3-2 final.
The result was good and the play on the field was entertaining, but it was the vibrancy and passion of Piktel’s new friends that won him over.
“You’d go to baseball or basketball games and you didn’t see stuff like that,” he says. “Even in its infancy it was striking. You started adding the flags and drums and everything that followed rapidly – it became big and impressive fast.”
Piktel became a Section 8 regular and later went on to serve as the Association’s chairman in 2012 and 2013. His story is just one of many similar tales from the various factions who navigated MLS’ infancy, with clubs attempting to balance a family-friendly atmosphere with what a budding supporters demographic would bring.
By embracing the culture early, clubs like the Fire and D.C. United set the tone. They attracted more like Piktel, fans who channeled their passion towards raising supporter standards throughout MLS, in the process creating a culture that, on the eve of the league’s 20th season, extends far beyond any two-hour gameday window.
For the hardcores, the ultras, the fanatics, supporting an MLS team has become a way of life. But it wasn’t always easy.
Progress isn’t painless. More importantly, it doesn’t happen overnight.
There were hiccups along the way, and often an undercurrent of nervous tension between supporters and stadium security who didn’t quite understand the ethos of this new type of North American sports fan. Over time, education between MLS, its clubs, supporters and security led to more successes and a better understanding of the culture.
Now it’s what the league markets, what makes MLS stand apart in the cluttered, competitive North American sporting landscape.
While MLS’ old hands continue to carry the banner, the addition of strong supporters’ associations in Toronto, Seattle, Philadelphia, Portland and Vancouver from 2007 through 2012 raised the league’s collective decibel level. Strength in voice and numbers in the stands became part of a virtuous cycle as the product on the field continued to improve.
Of course, bigger numbers brought more resources and ambition, both of which have been used by groups to widen the scope of support. The most obvious comes in the form of the tifo displays, which have begun to attract international recognition for their creativity.
Ranging from many small props, to bigger setups like overhead banners or use of a pulley system, tifo is a mix of creativity and big business in the supporters’ culture. Elaborate displays can take weeks or months of production, and tifo builds are often veiled in secrecy – if you’re lucky enough to attend one, don’t dare take a photo without prior permission.
As Timbers Army Vice-Chairman Jeremy Wright explains, the development of tifo in North American soccer culture has two driving points.
“At its heart tifo is about inspiring our players and fans to go all out in whatever game it's being displayed,” says Wright. “It's also about showing pride in your community and team. That said, there is no question that supporters want to one-up their biggest rivals.
“Here in Portland, that doesn't mean having a go at our rivals in the tifo itself, but it does mean we want to execute displays that make it known we are the best supporters group. We can't control what happens on the field but we can control what we do in the stands.”
While supporters have worked to build their home stadiums as fortresses for the side, more regional rivalries and better atmospheres around the league have spurred a growth in away support as well.
Such is the case of D.C. United supporter Donald Wine. A Detroit transplant, Wine was always a follower of MLS but didn’t stake a claim with a club until moving to the nation’s capital in 2007.
“The way away support has grown the last five years or so is incredible,” he says the day before setting off for Costa Rica to support his club against Alajuelense in last Thursday’s CONCACACF Champions League match. “It’s a good barometer on how a team is interacting with its fans and how much support has grown.
“Five years ago people would think you’re crazy to travel cross-country to a match. Now it’s a norm, you’ve got people that want to come with you and it’s not just for a trip between D.C. and New York – we go international too.”
With most clubs now sending varying numbers of supporters to different MLS cities, the idea of helping smooth over away fan travel has been a consistent topic for the Independent Supporters Council.
Born out of the old MLS Supporters Summit in 2010, the ISC is a Continental Congress of sorts, where nearly all MLS club supporter associations send representatives to review the previous season, look ahead to the next and share best practices.
While relationships between supporters’ associations and their home stadium security has improved, the increase in traveling fans throughout the league shined a light on inconsistencies in terms of how away supporters were allowed to support their team from stadium to stadium.
According to Wright, one of the early successes of the ISC has been more standardization for away supporters across the board.
“We used to spend six hours documenting stuff around away travel at our annual meeting,” says Wright, who also serves as chairman of the ISC. “At February’s meeting in Denver, the travel portion got talked about for maybe 20 minutes and it’s because, as a group, we went to MLS and said, ‘The travel is arbitrary from city-to-city, it’s not transparent, you need to do something about this.’ We banged the drum for three years and we just don’t have the issues that we have before.”
Some of the improvements across the league include a pregame call between visiting supporters’ leadership and the host club in the days leading up to a match to provide clarity and reminders on stadium policies. Most stadiums also lean on dedicated security guards in away supporters sections to keep policies consistent from game-to-game.
Wright says the ISC has helped put aside the sometimes petty animus that’s natural when supporters of competing clubs come together. Together they’ve found other early successes in the sharing of best practices, ranging from merchandise procurement, financial bookkeeping and an effort to encourage groups to serve their communities as non-profit organizations.
“Last year, a few groups put a simple piece together teaching everyone about how to launch a non-profit,” Wright says, “and almost every group around the table in February had filed to become a non-profit, or was in the process of doing so.”
As the ISC continues to grow, Wright admits there’s still work to be done.
Among the top priorities at last month’s ISC meeting was a desire to better understand the viewpoints of Major League Soccer and its clubs toward punishment for supporters groups deemed to be in violation of league codes.
Most recently, LA Galaxy supporters group Angel City Brigade were handed an eight-match supporters activity ban by the club for a “year filled with incidents,” culminating in a rain of streamers that were judged to have interrupted play during December’s MLS Cup final at StubHub Center.
The Galaxy, via a spokesperson, say they continue “to work with ACB on all club-supporter related matters.”
According the league, MLS shares minimum standards for supporters with all its clubs and allows them to manage their implementation with their respective supporters groups. Violations of those standards are handled on a case-by-case basis.
From the supporter’s perspective, a better understanding of the repercussions that lay in wait for groups if rules are broken is essential, according to Wright.
“How do the punishments happen and what are the standards?” Wright says. “Right now we just don’t know those and if we’re going to continue to grow, we need to.”
As both league and supporters’ culture grow, it’s clear that there will always be some challenges, but the progress that inevitably accompanies those moments is impossible to ignore, especially with even more diversity joining the league supporter movement in 2015 and beyond.
The two new clubs on the docket for 2015 – New York City FC and Orlando City SC – represent two different spectrums.
Orlando’s Iron Lion Firm and The Ruckus have been in place since 2011, mixing European, Latin and Caribbean styles in support of the team during its USL days. Their rowdy presence – some might say too rowdy, in fact – in the Citrus Bowl’s south end should be felt this season. The supporters' section at the Citrus Bowl holds nearly 4,000 fans, and is sold out for the home opener on March 8.
On the other side, The Third Rail is the Independent Supporters Association for New York City FC. While their identity and culture might not have the history that Orlando boasts from the third division, the group says it will draw from “melting pot culture of New York City, its many voices singing together” and already has more than 1,600 members.
As more groups come in, supporters’ travel gets booked and even more tifo is produced, MLS and its fans – rowdy or not – only stand to benefit.
Ahead of what will be the league’s 20th season, Ben Burton, another former chairman of Section 8 Chicago, echoed the sentiments of his fellow supporters: The best is yet to come.
“We haven’t reached a floor, or a ceiling, but a new normal,” Burton says. “Not everyone will know the history of everything and that’s fine because people are using this moment as a new baseline.
“People brought the expectation of what they wanted to do or see happen from elsewhere because it didn’t exist here. Now that it’s existed here for so long, I feel like there’s a foundation that’s going to be solid and continue to evolve.”
