Photos by @PNWmf
Born in Nineteen-Seventy-Four,
Sounders! Sounders!
And now we win like never before,
Sounders! Sounders!
We love our boys in famous green,
the greatest team you've ever seen
Seattle Sounders,
Born in Seventy-Four!
As part of the celebration of our CONCACAF Champions League banner drop, and to bask in a meaningful championship in front of our rivals, we took the opportunity to remind the team on the pitch - and the fans in the stands - that this is the greatest team we’ve ever seen.
Then, since the league won’t give anyone an answer on how to display such a feat on the crest, we took the opportunity - via curtain switch - to give our two-star crest a proper crown, befitting of a CCL Champion.
Along with the swap of middle curtains, the visual display featured cards to hold in the entire Brougham End, with shiny diamonds carrying on the pattern of the text curtains. Also included as part of the choreo, with many thanks to our tireless volunteers who set these out individually, were 30,000 tiny cards in the cup holders seats throughout the stadium. The cards included the lyrics to the display’s namesake song on one side, encouraging fans to sing with us during the deployment. On the other side was a QR code to visit a special website with the lyrics, when to sing the song, and a trip down memory lane of past displays for our rival derby.
If you want to help with production or deployment for our next display, sign up for the tifo volunteer list. If you’re not local, or can’t make it out, and want to donate to the tifo fund, you can do that in the ECS store.
Photos by @PMWmf
Build a Bonfire, Twice!
Few things can unite supporters groups like the mutual hatred of an opposing fan base. ECS joined forces with Royal Guard, OL Reign’s supporters group, to remind Portland that we’re all building this bonfire together - and by ‘we’, we mean Seattle and Tacoma.
The Reign are no strangers to the Portland rivalry and their old/new head coach Laura Harvey is ready to lead her team into war against the Thorns once again. She coached Seattle Reign FC for the first five years of the National Women’s Soccer League (2013-2017) and recently returned as OL Reign head coach.
For the Sounders, this rivalry crosses generational lines. It gets passed down from one year’s team to the next, from NASL to WSL to USL to MLS. Locals like Jordan Morris and Kelyn Rowe were raised on it and our teenagers understand it from day one. It was only fitting that our coffee-drinking steward holds the torch to keep this bonfire burning.
All in, this two overhead, one curtain display took approximately 400 volunteer hours of sewing, designing, painting, and deployment work, a great joint effort by members of ECS and RG. For ECS members, if you want to join a future tifo production session, or help with future deployments, fill out this form, for Royal Guard members or interested folks, follow @RoyalGuard_SG for ways to get involved.
The Seattle Sounders are and always have been a club of the greatest ambitions, and history reflects that. That ambition defines the club, we have won trophies by making the shirt sweat and we’ve won them with beauty and goals. We’ve challenged for every trophy available when we were a USL team taking on giants and when we were the giants. When we made the move to the top flight, we weren’t simply happy to be there, we went after silverware and brought it home. Even our youngest Sounders are not content to be with the best, they defeat the best. Success is our legacy and also our expectation, one that we hold for our current players as well as our future, that we will continue to strive for the best with every opportunity and do what we have to to win.
Portland can't say that, because ambition doesn’t grow on trees.
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This display had the most painted area of any display we’ve produced. The three curtains and overhead totaled 26,500 square feet (0.6 acres), requiring over 1.2 miles of seams to assemble. Our production team constructed and painted the four banners over a 30-day working session. Overall, over 100 ECS members contributed to production, setup and deployment of the display.
Ambition is an expectation we hold for ourselves as well, always in support of our team’s highest achievements. Displays like this require commitment from our members and we are always looking for more people to contribute. [To learn more and sign up for the next production session, visit our tifo forum here.]
UPDATE: If you're here because coach Schmetzer just told you it was a great example, CLICK HERE to sign up now to help with the next display and let the boys know you care!
There is no way around it, the first half of this season has been dark. We were dismissed from Champions League. We were bounced out of the US Open Cup by a minor league team. We spent much of the time looking up at the Western Conference from the bottom of the table. We lost to Portland twice, including at home. We’ve watched injuries and red cards tear apart the lineup. The team has struggled for goals, and points, and our position on the table is bleak.
But now the boys are returning home, with 5 points from a 3 match road trip. Gustav and Roman are back with the team after representing their nations at the world cup. Nico and Victor are healthy and starting to click. We’ve signed one of the best goal scorers in Liga MX.
We support a powerful club, a powerful team, a powerful group of individuals. Their power is turning what has been dark times in Seattle and dawn is upon us.
This 5000 square foot curtain was produced in just a few days by our ECS tifo production team. We always need more volunteers to help make projects like this happen, find out how you can get involvedhere!
Photo credit: Max Aquino
No matter which Sounders are on the field, the opponent we face, or where we’re at in the standings, we support and play for our city, our club, our crest.
Always Seattle.
This display is 6,000 sq. ft. and was sewn, drawn, and painted during more than 600 hours of work by our volunteers.
These displays don‘t happen without the amazing commitment of our members. Join us for the next one! Sign up to receive more information here.
Photo Credit: Max Aquino
For the 100th all time Sounders vs Timbers match we wanted to remind everyone how Seattle feels about Portland, and always has. If you don’t get it yet, study up on the International maritime signal flags.
Here's a better angle to see the flags!
This small display includes a 400 sq ft ECS skull and 16 two poles. Let’s take a walk down memory lane of some of our other tifo displays against Portland.
Tifo projects like this aren’t possible without the help of our volunteers and we’d love your help. For more information, check the tifo production box on our volunteer form!
Photo credit: Jeremiah Oshan / SounderAtHeart
For the Cascadia Cup match against Vancouver on September 27th, we brought back a tifo medium we hadn't used in years: small colored flags! We used these to create a Cascadia flag the size of the ECS section both pre-game and at times throughout the match when our capos called for it!
Photo Credit: Joe Towner / PNWMF
The Sounders 2016 MLS Cup championship makes things right in the world. For the previous year, the most successful club in Cascadia had been usurped by an imposter. But Brian Schmetzer’s Rave Green Army reclaimed the throne for the Rightful King and claimed the MLS Cup as a spoil of war. The king sits upon his throne in the Emerald City and looks out upon his realm, the waves in the northern waters and the happy little trees in the southern forest.
We chose Brian Schmetzer to represent the Sounders on the throne because of his lifetime of contributions to the club. Brian’s career with the Sounders started at the age of 17 when he signed for the NASL Sounders directly out of high school. His professional playing career took him across the country before he returned to Seattle as the head coach of the USL Sounders in 2002. After serving as an assistant coach for the MLS squad starting in 2009, Brian was named head coach in July 2016 and led the club on an amazing run to the 2016 MLS Cup.
This display is 12,500 sq feet of material and used about 70 gallons of paint. With sewing and painting, our choreo production team knocked this out in about a week.
Tifo projects like this aren’t possible without the help of our volunteers and we’d love your help. For more information, check the tifo production box on our volunteer form!
Photo Credit: Joe Towner/PNWMF
The story of today's choreo begins with the 5/24/2014 away trip to BC Place. Looking out at the skyline from our bus on the way home, we noticed a resemblance between the sinister silhouette of BC Place's masts and the thorny crown of the Night King from Game of Thrones. As we talked about the idea, we realized that the analogy was a great fit: our city, our club, and our boys are the final point of defense against against an old, white-clad threat from across our Northern border, and we are Sounders 'till we die, just as a crow's watch ends only at death.
We designed the concrete aspects of the image to support this conceptual foundation: supporters at the top of the wall along with the text "We Are the Watchers On the Wall", to emphasize our connection with and commitment to our boys on the pitch, and a Sounders ranger of the Night's Watch defeating the BC-Place-throned monster as a representation of our boys defeating our northern Cascadian foe.
Of course, the value of an idea lies in using it, and we had great work from our volunteers, starting with the excellent (and challenging!) artwork created by our designer, to the work done by our team to sew, draw, and paint the banners, and finally from our 30-person deployment team.
Facts:
- The display is comprised of a 100'x55' curtain, a 100'x70' overhead, and approximately 2,500 cards.
- About 80 volunteers put in approximately 800 hours of work during production
- We used 24 gallons of paint on the image. Despite the large amount of whitespace, painting was very labor intensive due to the amount of detail on the Night King and supporters silhouette.
All ECS members are invited and encouraged to come meet their fellow supporters and participate in a tifo making session. Follow @ECSTifo for more information or you can email your questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please also like Emerald City Supporters on Facebook to stay up to date with ECS events including tifo.
Tifo projects such as this are supported by the sale of our membership kits and by donations.
By Steve Collins and Rob Scott
Designing Build a Bonfire:
The design of this display started as it always does, tossing ideas around a table. After the initial concept of the Four Horsemen, the extra touches of a burning forest and torches being wielded by our players was added.
We wanted to challenge ourselves with this display by taking things a step further with the detail, size, and production techniques. We used spray paint for the first time on a large display, which gave the design another layer and helped bring it to life, which paid off in the final result.
The selection of players to include in the design was also an easy choice. We wanted to pick a group of players that represented different qualities on our team. Eddie Johnson and his finishing ability, Mike Gspurning and his solid presence in the net, Ozzie Alonso and his relentless defensive tenacity, and Brad Evans for his versatility and tireless play.
Build a bonfire production:
This choreo took 3 weeks to “make”. And that is just the sewing, drawing, and painting. The conceptual phase took much longer. In truth, we were kicking around this idea for months, constantly revising the image, before we started production. Anywhere from 10-20 people helped each day we sewed/drew/painted. Over 25 people helped set up the choreo and almost 50 helped with deployment.
The total size is approximately 37,000 sqft. Around 70 gallons of paint were used for 100% coverage of all 6 segments. Almost 3,000 cards were used in the wing sections of the Brougham End to help “blank” those sections and focus attention back on the display. We used 35 ropes to hoist the curtains.
Tifo is a labor of love. Tifo nights are very long and they bleed together into very longs weeks. Typically everyone goes and makes a living at their day job, and then we all meet up around 5pm and work until 10pm or later each weekday, weekends we usually start at noon.
We can't say enough about all the ECS members who selflessly and tirelessly offer up their free time to help bring these choreos to life. But rather then rambling on and heaping sappy piles of praise on everyone I’ll simply say this: Up the Sounders and Up the ECS!
If you want to be involved in Brougham End tifo displays in the future, we can help you get your season tickets in the Brougham End! Fill out ourseason ticket form and we'll work with the Sounders ticket staff to get you moved to the Brougham End. As always, our members get priority for these types of perks, so make sure yourmembershipis current!
