Here are five Major League Soccer fan traditions you need to know
Inter Miami has yet to play its first game, but already three passionate supporters’ groups have emerged — Southern Legion, Vice City 1896, and The Siege. A collection of a few hundred members of all three groups made the cross-state trek to St. Petersburg last weekend for the team’s final preseason game against the Tampa Bay Rowdies.
They traveled with giant drums, flags and banners. They staged a pregame pep rally in the driveway of the team hotel, and got players to sing and play drums with them as they emerged from the hotel. Inside the stadium, they stood the entire match, banging drums, and singing mostly Spanish songs, some of them takeoffs on popular fan chants from South America.
Some of the supporters are holdovers from the Afusionados fan group, which rooted for the Miami Fusion, a Major League Soccer team that existed from 1998 to 2001. The Fusion played at now-demolished Lockhart Stadium, on the same site as Inter Miami’s new Fort Lauderdale stadium and training complex.
When Inter Miami plays its historic home opener March 14 against the Los Angeles Galaxy, the supporters’ groups will surely be loud and have a Latin flair. Game-day traditions will form, as they have all the league.
Here are five of the best MLS fan rituals...
THE VICTORY LOG
Perhaps the most unique — and certainly the longest-lasting — tradition in American soccer is the Portland Timbers’ Victory Log.
The ritual began in the 1970s with lumberjack Jim Serrill (better known as Timber Jim), who was a diehard fan of the Timbers when they played in the North American Soccer League. He asked team management if he could bring a chainsaw to the games to celebrate goals and get the crowd riled up. They gave him permission, and he proceeded to become the team’s unofficial mascot.
Timber Jim would rev up the chainsaw and wave it over his head, do handsprings, scale a tall post, and later began a tradition of sawing slices off a log for each goal scored. When he retired in 2008, he was succeeded by Timber Joey (Joey Webber). The tradition continues today. A round slab is sawed off a Douglas Fir log after every Timbers goal and shutout. The slices are passed around the Timbers Army supporters’ group and then awarded to the goalscorer/goalkeeper as a trophy.
THE GOLDEN SPIKE
Every Atlanta United match begins and ends with The Golden Spike.
Ninety minutes before the start of each game, the players arrive at Mercedes-Benz Stadium and sign an eight-foot replica of a golden railroad spike — in honor of the spike driven into Georgia’s red clay in 1837 to found the city. Afterward, all fans are invited to sign it. Then, just before kickoff, a group of Atlanta United supporters march and carry the Golden Spike through the supporters’ section and to a platform decorated with the team logo platform fronting it.
The Golden Spike is then hammered into the platform by an Atlanta celebrity or dignitary while fans chant “A-T-L! A-T-L!”
After each match, a smaller Golden Spike is awarded to the player of the match, an honor voted on by the fans via Twitter.
MARCH TO THE MATCH
The only way to truly experience a Seattle Sounders match is to wrap a green scarf around your neck and participate in the March to the Match — a procession from the historic Pioneer Square neighborhood to CenturyLink Field.
The tradition began informally when the Sounders were still a minor-league United Soccer League team, and it evolved into a full-blown parade when the team played its first MLS home opener in March 2009. The Emerald City Supporters (ECS) lead the half-mile procession no matter the weather. Being that it’s in Seattle, they often march in the rain.
Ninety minutes before kickoff, the club hosts a pep rally at Pioneer Square’s Occidental Park with the official Sounders FC percussion and brass band Sound Wave. As the procession to the stadium begins, fans pour out of bars and restaurants along the way to join in. Past players and local celebrities — including actor/part-owner Drew Carey — often participate in the march.
THE CAULDRON
Sporting Kansas City’s north end of the stadium, nicknamed The Cauldron, is also known for boisterous, game-long singing and chanting. The club’s independent supporters’ groups — including the King City Yardbirds, KC Soccer Misfits, Brookside Elite, Southern Voodoo — gather in that section of the stadium and serenade the team with dozens of songs.
The supporters’ groups tailgate, play pickup games, host holiday parties, travel to road games, and make banners.
THE 3252
Although Los Angeles FC has been in the league only a few years, Banc of California Stadium has already developed a reputation as one of the liveliest venues in MLS. A big reason is the 3252 supporters’ group, which dominates the standing-only North End of the 22,000-seat stadium. Fans pay $20 for the general admission spots in the safe-standing-with-railing area, where they sing, beat drums and wave giant flags shoulder-to-shoulder. Their TIFOs (choreographed fan displays) are among the best in the league.
The name “3252” comes from the capacity of the north end of the stadium. At 34 degrees, LAFC’s supporters’ section is one of the steepest in MLS. Inter Miami players will find out firsthand Sunday what it’s like to play with the 3252 fans chanting right over them. Win or lose, it will be a true taste of MLS fan culture.