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.
As with the display from the previous round, this was inspired by Brian Schmetzer’s emotional letter. We love the message he shared and we wanted to include everyone in this display. With over 6400 flags throughout the Brougham End, we showed that we are all Sounders, fighting together to defend our MLS Cup. Whether you're on the field, in the stands or watching from around the world, you're part of this!
The 3 text banners are each 10' tall and 100' wide, and our ECS Tifo team produced this in 2 nights. The 6400 flags is the most we've used in a display, our volunteers set them all up in about 90 minutes. If you're interested in getting involved in producing, setting up, or deploying tifo, let us know here!
Photo Credit: Joe Towner / PNWMF
At the start of the 2017 playoffs, Sounders fans were read a letter by Head Coach Brian Schmetzer about the defense of our 2016 MLS Cup Championship. This resonated with us, so for our first home playoff match we joined the Sounders lineup announcement with a large text banner celebrating the words coach shared with us.
Photo Credit: Max Aquino Photography
Once again we find ourselves nearing the end of a roller-coaster season. The past season has been full of ups and downs. The future is uncertain. But one thing has been constant. A force that drives every chant, every pogo, every extra ounce of passion in our hearts- our players have time and time again shown us their worth, and it’s about more than just kicking a ball around a field. They embody values that we as supporters connect to on a fundamental level. It’s what makes soccer so universally relatable and what makes the Seattle Sounders so special.
Photo credit Joe Towner / PNWMF
The Brougham Cathedral display celebrates the values that we see our boys live for day in and day out, both on and off the field. We’ve chosen seven players that demonstrate what it means to be a Sounder, each personifying a particular value in his own way. These are our patron saints that we look to in times of struggle and lift up in thanks in times of glory. Our love for them, for all of the Sounders, is deep and profound - a love that only the gods can understand!
For this display we constructed curtains that span 7 sections, a text overhead in GA and 7500 cards covering the Brougham End, including the 300 level, to frame our image. This expansion in footprint makes this the largest choreo in ECS history! All of this was produced in 12 days by our 100% volunteer choreo production team, totaling about 500 hours of hard labor.
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 Max Aquino Photo
Reference photo credits for design: Dean Rutz (Ozzie), Lindsey Wasson (Frei, Nico), Charis Wilson (Dempsey), Ted S. Warren (Jordan, Cristian), Dan Poss (Jones)
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
It’s the one year anniversary of the Pulse Massacre, where dozens of Latinx LGBTQIA (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, Asexual/Agender) lives were tragically taken. We look forward to our boys in green playing against the home of the 49 Rainbow seats. Nuestra Comunidad seeks to pull ourselves together to heal our hearts and honor them with full lives. We ensured our message spoke in two languages, to speak to the moment in which we find ourselves, and to speak to our hispanophone Sounders. The skyline as a heartbeat represents how the Rave Green flows thru our veins, the rhythm the Sounders give our city, and to the events of last year. The rainbow splits out, welcoming all who seek to find a home in this sport. Come cheer for the Eternal Blue Forever Green and know that Wherever We May Roam, there’s a home for you when you see the Emerald City Supporters assemble. We are one community, una comunidad.
A special thank you to Anders Mac and Pride of the Sound for helping design and produce this display and doing this writeup!
Photo Credit: Max Aquino Photography
When the Sounders signed Osvaldo Alonso in 2008, he was a 23 year-old with one year of professional experience in the United States. He was relatively unknown at the time, but over the 8+ seasons he has played for the Sounders, Ozzie has earned the reputation for being one of the best defensive midfielders in MLS history. Earlier this year, he surpassed 20,000 minutes (about 14 DAYS) played in his MLS career, and on Saturday in Yankee Stadium he played in his 300th Sounders match. In that time, he's filled his personal trophy case with 4 US Open Cups, a Supporters Shield, and an MLS Cup.
This display celebrates Ozzie’s 300th match and plays off the nickname earned by his fierce gameplay and leadership of the team: "El Corazon de los Sounders" (The Heart of the Sounders). The display is 3 panels, each one 34’x15’ and our tifo production team completed this in 3 days. In a fun twist, due to the uncertainty of when Ozzie would reach 300, this display was designed and produced with flexibility to be deployed at either Starfire or RBP.
Photo Credit: Brendan Vaughn
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
Sometimes you just gotta talk shit. And your first home game against the team you defeated to win the championship is one of those times. You may remember the arrogance of Toronto FC leading up to MLS Cup and their tifo claiming that their time had come. We all know how well that worked out for them, but just in case they may have pushed them from memory, we wanted to remind them that their trophy case still sits empty while ours has grown yet again. The design of this display started in a conversation late in the night after Roman Torres buried the game winning penalty kick, as we rode the train back to the Loose Moose to celebrate. 2016 was a roller coaster, but no one can deny that it was our time. 2017 is a celebration, and we’re here to remind the league that nothing is more powerful than Seattle Sounders.
This display included our first card switch, as we started with red cards to create Toronto’s empty trophy case and then changed to green cards to create our trophy case with the MLS cup in it. The display also included painting 3 MLS Cups, bringing the season total to 4. Being insufferable isn’t easy, that cup is curvy!
Image from Max Aquino Photography
December 10, 2016. Thousands of Brougham Faithful descended on Toronto, devouring every memory of the weekend they could. One local watering hole might have run dry of nearly all kegged beverages. It was a wild time. When one tries to sit back and recall MLS Cup weekend 2016, there are a few distinct memories, and many more clouded in a fog of delirium.
Fast Facts:
- The curtain and text banner combine to make 4,800 square feet of painted fabric.