The 2018 Sounders season starts with a return to CONCACAF Champions League play and the opportunity to climb to new heights. By winning the 2016 MLS Cup, the Sounders qualified for this Champions League campaign and completed their collection of domestic trophies. The display draws inspiration from the Cascade mountain range with each of our US Open Cup, Supporters Shield and MLS Cup trophies atop a peak, and sun behind Mt Rainier shows our aspirations of claiming Champions League glory.

Tifo projects like this aren’t possible without the help of our volunteers and we’d love your help. For more information and email updates on how to help, check the tifo production box on our volunteer form and follow ECSTifo on twitter.

Photo Credit: Joe Towner / PNWMF

The Emerald City Supporters are always looking for volunteers to help out with various facets of the organization, and right now we're looking to grow our merch and tifo crews. These teams offer both matchday and non-matchday roles, and there are all sorts of great ways to get involved.

Merch Team

Our Merch Team is responsible for designing, shipping, and selling all of our gear. From pint glasses and membership kits to bags and clutches made from recycled tifo displays, this team ensures you have a variety of options to represent the boys where ever you go.

In 2018 we have easy ways for you to get involved, with a wide range of time commitments! We need volunteers to:

• join us for merch shipping nights
• sell merch in the concourse prior to home matches
• work our table at block parties, away viewings, or away trips
• collaborate with our Design Team to create new items.

Without volunteers, we're not able to provide fresh designs and deliver your orders, and we appreciate the time you can offer!

Come join us for our first informational session of the year on Saturday, January 13, and stick around to help us make a dent in packing 2018 membership kits! Can't make it on Saturday? Watch the forums for more information about upcoming shipping events and other opportunities!

Tifo Crew

The ECS tifo team needs your help to continue to do what we do and to push to new levels! With the 2018 season coming fast, planning for our matchday crews and choreo design and production teams is underway. WE NEED YOU!

• Matchday tifo crews are responsible for the transportation, setup, and tear down of our flags, capo stands, drums, rail banners, etc on matchday. We are having a meeting soon for new members and we need your help! Visit the forum for more information.
  
  

• The ECS design team works on everything from stickers to the biggest choreos. We need your ideas and your skills to continue to raise the bar on everything we do! Please reach out to us This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Twitter!
  
  

• Our choreo production team does the sewing, drawing and painting of the displays that fill the Brougham End. The team works hard in short sprints to accomplish this work, often going 5 hours a day for 2 weeks straight in the evenings and on weekends. There’s no skills required - everything can be taught! We often have security lists for certain sessions, so even if you think you might be able to come, you should always sign up. A few hours per person goes a long way in helping us finish each job. If you can commit to just ONE DAY out of the whole year, it will be an immense help. We need a lot more volunteers just to maintain the standards we’ve set and to continue to become bigger and better in the years to come.
  
  

Our first production sessions of the year are upcoming on January 21st and January 28th-February 10th. For information on production sessions throughout the year, get on the tifo production email list by checking the box on our volunteer form and look for details on the forum.

40 years is a great milestone for any club, and we wanted to celebrate the beginning of our 40th year with something that reminded our players of the history of the Sounders, and inspired them to add their time with the club to that history.

The Concept
A multi staged deployment consisting first of a bookshelf with notable players named on the bindings, and small trophies celebrating our 4 championships.  Second, a book of Sounders history with pages for each era, NASL, USL, and MLS, and a blank page with a quill and ink suggesting to continue the Sounders legacy.

Players
Choosing players we wanted a combination of different types of players and what they meant to the club.  NASL was filled with a number of legendary players like Geoff Hurst and Bobby Moore.  We thought a reminder of the caliber of player that put on the jersey was fitting for this era. 

For USL we wanted to acknowledge the work horses of the club, the players that would give their all for the crest and, while may not have had the name recognition as their NASL counterparts, were just a vital to the club’s history.

For MLS we decided to do a mixture of both of the previous eras, along with something acknowledging each ECS Player of the Year for their commitment to the supporters and the city. 

Production
We started sewing the material together in early February. Over the course of two days we sewed together all 28,000sqft which was over 1.5 miles of seams. We used up to four sewing machines at a time, each with a team of 3 or 4 to complete the assembly.

Painting the display took 3 weeks, with over 40 volunteers puting in as much time as they could afford, usually working about 8hrs a night. Fun (totally coincidental) fact, this display took 74 gallons of paint. The card portion of the display took 2 nights to prep with each of the 7,500 cards hand cut by volunteer ECS members.

The level of ingenuity, creativity, and efficiency our volunteers bring is something to behold. We’re truly grateful for all their help. These couldn’t happen with their loyal support and love for the Sounders.

Deployment

Pulleys, ropes, and brute strength were required to raise the bookcase and open the book to show the club's history.  We'll let the display speak for itself.

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Photo credit: Max Aquino

As soon as we clinched the Western Conference Championship and another trip to Toronto for MLS Cup, we knew what we had to do. Going on the road in a hostile stadium against a team looking to avenge their 2016 MLS Cup loss, the Sounders were going to have to defend together. To defend our cup would require all of us, whether we played, supported in BMO Field's rafters or watched from home. For those who couldn't travel, we carried them with us on the back of the "SOUNDERS" banner. We united together in defense of our cup and gave it our best effort, but we came up short.

The 2018 season is right around the corner. Practice starts in January, Champions League starts in February, MLS starts in March, Open Cup starts in June, and MLS Cup wraps it all up in December. To get back to the top, we must remember:

We are all Sounders.
We fight for each other.
We win together.

Display stats:
The 3 text banners were 10' tall and totaled 120' wide.
Every seat in the away section had a flag, over 1100 total.
The display was transported over 2000 miles from Seattle to Toronto, with other gear arriving from around the country thanks to our regional subgroups.
The SOUNDERS banner was signed by innumerable Sounders fans and supporters throughout the week, either for themselves or family and friends who would travel to Toronto with us in that way.