MEET THE HARDCORE MLS
SUPERFANS WHO WILL DO
ANYTHING FOR THEIR TEAM
The Redondo Beach boardwalk and pier are nearly empty. Shops are closing down. Bars and restaurants are open, but nobody seems to be inside. Waves crash against the dark sand below. A man busks outside the public restrooms. And I'm lost.
I'm here looking for 200 or so fans who have traveled on one week's notice to meet at Naja's, a bar on the boardwalk. They're here because the team they support, the New England Revolution, has reached the MLS Cup final for the fifth time in club history and they want to be there tomorrow to see their beloved Revs spoil Landon Donovan's going away party, beat the Galaxy, and finally win the MLS cup for the first time. But I can't find the bar.
Finally, I find it down a flight of stairs. Naja's is filling up with Revolution fans wearing their trusted jerseys and scarves. They've traveled on any available flight this weekend—some travelled as many as 18 hours with layovers—to get here for the culmination of a long season.
I'm hoping to meet Mike Amrock, a 41-year-old Revolution season ticket holder since 1997—Major League Soccer's second season—from Weymouth, Massachusetts. He has traveled to every final the Revolution have played.
"This will be my 5th Revolution MLS Cup final and God willing we'll be bringing home the trophy!" he wrote in an email before the trip to Los Angeles.
Naja's fills up, but I can't find Amrock. The discussions are lively inside, which has a live band playing bar standards and TVs with replays from Premier League and La Liga games on them. At one point, the fans have the band play along while they sing "Rev-O-Lution" in unison. People in the bar are excited for tomorrow's game, but an air of despair linger over the crowd. This Revs team has done everything right on the field so far, but the fans have been here before. They've seen their beloved club come from the depths and rise nearly to the top four times before, only to see it all go to hell.
I can't find Amrock, so I decide to head home. It's late, and tomorrow will be a long day. The MLS Cup awaits. Kick-off is at noon PST and I'm sure to meet more of these fans a few hours before the game with beers in hand and more songs to sing.
Soccer in America has its "aha" moment every four years. Whenever the World Cup rolls around, every news outlet in the country runs a "Has soccer made it in America?" feature or column. Television ratings spike for the world's most popular sporting event and the major news outlets that were sleeping on soccer for the previous three years think it's time to get into the game. But diehard fans of American soccer have existed for decades and they're vocal. And they're growing in numbers every year.
There are 500-plus supporters in Parking Lot 16 of the StubHub Center—nearly 1,000 in total will make the trip to LA—ready to cheer for the Revolution as they take on Donovan and the Galaxy. It's 10 a.m. and the lot is already filled with revelling fans. They've come from far and wide—I meet a crew of Portland Timbers fans who travelled 17 tightly packed hours in a small rental car from Portland the day before and another group of FC Dallas supporters.
The supporters have spent thousands of dollars on impromptu trips across the country to cheer on their team with people who have become close friends, practically family. They're here because the team feels like it belongs to them. MLS fans may not be as great in number as NFL or even NHL fans, but they are deeply involved, often working with clubs,scheduling tifos, and organizing songs.
"I feel like, with the whole supporters culture, you really have more of a strong connection with the club than you do in baseball. You have fans in football, you have fans in basketball, but you don't really have that supporter mentality," says Matt Casartello, 26. "You got random sections of people who might be standing up and cheering during a whole game, but it's not organized, it's not dedicated, you're not coordinating with the actual front office of the team to get things done. You really feel involved, like you're part of the team."
Other sports are trying to embrace the soccer supporters culture because they see it as a way to keep fans interested and invested in their favorite teams. The Ottawa Senatorslaunched the Red Scarf Union for this season in the hopes of capturing the crowd noise and enthusiasm that comes with supporters' sections in soccer. In the NBA, the Milwaukee Bucks are trying the same thing.
Both organizations are hoping to foster an organic supporters environment that links fans and the team they support while also creating a new, more modern fan experience that is loud and intense. This kind of coalition among fans makes people feel like they're more than just spectators. It makes them feel like they're part of an important movement and as if what they're doing means something. The approach has paid off for American soccer teams, so it only makes sense for other professional leagues to try and embrace it.
I find Amrock in the parking lot. He's a giant of a man with a friendly smile and pale, Irish skin. With him is an old friend he just ran into, Herb Mores, who is wearing a Revs replica jersey from the inaugural season and is one of the team's longest serving supporters. They're reconnecting and going back over the "old days" of being a Revolution fan.
"I haven't seen him [Mores] in while, but now after so many years we reconnect and you see all these people and they come together. We share a passion," says Amrock. "It's like a family. We may not see each other for a while and then we come together at these big events."
Amrock has been to every big event involving the Revolution that he can remember. But he's only seen them win once on the big stage. It was the 2007 U.S. Open Cup final in Dallas and the traveling crowd was nowhere near what it is today—Amrock remembers less than 20 traveling fans in Dallas for the final. The Revs won, 3-2, to claim the club's first major trophy and the fans stormed the field, which was something Amrock would never forget.
However, for the most part, he's seen the Revolution lose. Still, he knew he had to be here. He wouldn't let himself miss any chance of seeing his favorite club lift American soccer's most prized trophy. What if the team won when he wasn't there? He'd never forgive himself.
The Galaxy have a security team here in the lot to supervise the New England supporters. They start rallying up the supporters before their planned march to the stadium. Kick-off is still an hour away, but with this many fans storming one gate, security wants to have them organized when they arrive. The Revs fans form a pack and hold their scarves stretched out above their heads and begin to sing their medley of songs as they march to the gates and eventually to their seats.
American soccer is still a niche sport. MLS is growing—this year's MLS Cup had a record TV viewership—but there is still a stigma attached to the American game. This means that rival fans are still hospitable when it comes to the larger battle. They are not only part of a small family cheering on their teams, but part of a larger family trying to keep soccer in America alive. The sport they love has been marginalized by the mainstream media. For example, not one major newspaper in Massachusetts has a dedicated beat writer for the Revolution.
"The supporters culture in this country is much different than others because we understand each other. We know what it takes to travel across this country, how much money, how much dedication," Amrock says. "We're not going to ruin it by trying to fight somebody. Any trouble you'd see would be a casual fan of LA that wants to start trouble with us because we're supporting the other team. It wouldn't be supporter against supporter, never, in any stadium in the country."
Amrock's assessment might not be 100 percent true, but it does hold water for the most part. Fans will sing at one another and call each other out online or during games, but fights are rare. D.C. United is one of the Revolution's biggest rivals, but once when Revs' supporters travelled to Washington D.C., they were invited to a United party the night before a match and offered breakfast the day of the game.
On this day, the Revolution fans are seated in a far corner of the StubHub Center. The overhang that surrounds three-quarters of the stadium isn't over them, a strategic move by the Galaxy so that the group of fans can't use the coverage as an amplifier for their songs. Right next to the Revs' fans is one of the largest supporters' group for the Galaxy, the Angel City Brigade. Directly across the stadium is the other section of Galaxy supporters, the Riot Squad.
Throughout the tense game, none of them will relent. They bring the noise and the atmosphere to the game. Every time the Revolution supporters begin singing about their team or their players, the Galaxy crew tosses in a "sucks" after every "Rev-O-lution." The reporter I sit next to during the game, under the roof of the stadium on the opposite side of the field, will remark more than once on how great the Revolution supporters are for this game. How they bring the atmosphere and force the other fans to be on their best game for the full 90 minutes plus 30 minutes of extra-time.
The Revolution lose, 2-1, thanks to a late goal from Galaxy forward Robbie Keane. The club is still cursed. It's the team's fifth loss in the MLS Cup finals, but that doesn't dampen the Revolution supporters' mood. They're down, but they're not out. After the final whistle they try to serenade their players, singing as loud as they can.
As the Revolution supporters leave the stadium, they again hold their scarves above their heads. This is their life. This is their team, and losing a final can't take any of that away. Come Monday or Tuesday, they'll be sitting in their cubicles at work counting down the days until the season starts and they can see their family again.
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