The blue smoke dispersed in the air before the collective of Seattle Sounders supporters gathered in Occidental Park took the first step of their March to the Match, the three block trek to CenturyLink Field that’s done before every home fixture.
The pep rally fun at the park that preceded the smoke — the Sound Wave marching band performed songs to get supporters dancing, an emcee hosted supporters in competitions for prizes, and Sounders co-owner/The Price is Right host Drew Carey made a cameo to say that the Sounders would “kick some Portland ass” and “God Bless” — was now a distant memory. The March to the Match was the first order of business for the supporters in reaffirming that this is their territory. Especially when the visitors encroaching on that territory were the Portland Timbers, their Cascadia Cup rivals (Portland is located three hours south of Seattle via I-5) and opponents this past Sunday night for Fox Sports 1’s weekly coverage of MLS.
I was not prepared for how captivating this march would be. The neighborhood between Occidental Park and CenturyLink Field shut down when the parade of Rave Green and Sounder Blue scarves marched south toward the stadium. A line of traffic with bored drivers was forced to sit and watch before they could continue their eastbound drive. Mariners and Twins fans hanging out after the matinee baseball game stood on the sidewalks and recorded the rowdy procession. Diners at restaurants, kitchen employees with a window view, and even people sitting on the second floor of office buildings all paused what they were doing and took in the chants, the colors, the cavalry of supporters.
(You’ll need headphones for one word in that bottom video.)
Inside CenturyLink Field, a capacity crowd of more than 41,000 people stood and sang the national anthem with conductor Dr. Stephen Newby, who, of course, waved a little conductor stick to a bunch of soccer fans who probably didn’t understand what each stroke meant. (I know I didn’t. Good exercise for the wrist, though.) All 100-Level sections remained standing after the anthem. Like the student section of any college football stadium, there would be no sitting again for this level until halftime.
The drums and chants from the Emerald Coast Supporters (ECS) and Gorilla FC, the two supporters sections in the south end of the stadium, generated enough noise to blanket the entire stadium through most of the match. In the few pauses that those sections took to organize the next chant, all the way in the north end’s third tier of the stadium, the traveling band of the Timbers Army made their presence known. Although the Timbers Army was confined to the most distant part of the stadium, their drum and their voices —whatever they were saying was pretty intelligible from my 100-level seat at the south end — were heard. Even when the Alliance of Sounders supporters drowned the Timbers Army out again, I could at least see the Timbers Army supporters clapping and holding their arms outstretched.
The South End, with ECS and Gorilla FC
I have to give credit to the Timbers Army for keeping their energy up in spite of the space and numerical disadvantages. I understand wanting to give the best seats in the house to the supporters of your own club, but I would have loved for the Timbers Army to be moved closer to the pitch on the north end and see the duel for the atmosphere between the ECS and Timbers Army. That struggle is the most fun part about any derby (rivalry) match in European soccer and is arguably what makes a derby a derby.
On the pitch, the Rave Green of the Sounders running against the Rose (City) Red for the Timbers was an aesthetically pleasing contrast, even though the level of play in the first half didn’t match the visuals. Portland was content to hunker down and clog up its own zone, which Seattle struggled to break down because of the slow build-ups to the attacks. The Sounders would have plenty of space and possession on the flanks, but midfielders Marco Pappa and Lamar Neagle couldn’t get the ball into the center of the pitch before the rush of Rose Red crowded out forwards Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins. On the lone, first half opportunity he had within 12 yards of goal, Martins flashed his sharp angled shot just wide of the far post. Portland’s withdrawn style gave midfield star Darlington Nagbe little to do and Portland failed to muster a shot on goal that half.
The supporters of both clubs kept chanting anyway.
All in the 100 Level rose again when 45:00 reappeared on the clocks, coinciding with the arrival of light rain at CenturyLink. In hindsight, the arrival of rain was foreboding for the Sounders. Portland took the game plan Seattle should have switched to — an uptempo attack — and put the Sounders defense on the back heel. The Sounders defenders refused to close down swaths of space that the Timbers had outside the box, with Timbers striker Ishmael Yartley forcing Sounders goalkeeper Stefan Frei into making his first save of the match in the 51st minute.
The supporters continued to chant through the drizzle and defensive struggles.
The game started to open up a little more, but it wasn’t the prettiest play. A Dempsey cross forced a save in the 57th minute, then Portland’s Diego Chara fired another shot from outside the box in the 61st minute that Frei saved and held. The Timbers Army celebrated when Maximiliano Urruti scored in the 70th minute, but the linesman ruled the goal offside, and the ECS filled the silence before everyone else in the stands realized it was no goal. Neagle, Pappa, and Portland substitute striker Fanendo Adi all went wide successively between the 72nd and 74th minutes.
The Timbers Army away section is highlighted for comparison to the home support sections.
It took a fluke in the 78th minute for Seattle to finally breach the Portland wall. The Portland defense failed to clear a throw-in into the box, where the ball landed at the feet of Sounders substitute midfielder Andy Rose. Rose shot the ball straight at Timbers goalkeeper Adam Larsen Kwarasey, who palmed the ball away to his left, but his attempts to stretch and grab ahold of the ball only pushed it toward the line. Dempsey, quiet throughout the game up until this point, crashed the net and tapped in the ball for the easy goal.
The celebration from the crowd was an eruption of pent-up energy and the CenturyLink turned into a party for a minute. The supporters provided the noise and the stadium supplied flames from behind the net, fireworks from the north end, and streamers over the east and west stands. This goal is why the supporters kept chanting through the good and the bad earlier in the game: the ecstasy and relief of seeing your club overcome all the misplaced passes, crosses, shots, and dribbles from earlier in the match for that one moment when all the circumstances lined up for the ball to roll past a line.
Supporters rained down songs of praise for Dempsey, then fired shots at the Timbers Army over the silence in their section after the goal.
But there now a palpable tension in the crowd when the Timbers had possession. Portland hit the crossbar just three minutes after Dempsey’s goal and Seattle continued to sit back and give Portland the space to move the ball around Frei’s box. But at the final whistle, the Sounders supporters could exhale and reroute that tension toward celebrating a 1-0 derby victory over the Timbers. The quality of the play wasn’t the best that both teams are capable of, but tonight was about the support that fans of both clubs provided, and the supporters sections delivered on making the atmosphere for fun for an outsider like me. Cascadia lived up to the hype and expectations I had for it, and may this rivalry continue to flourish.
While many of the fans in the east and west stands filed in line to exit the stadium, the ECS and Timbers Army remained entrenched in their sections as the players went through the post-game sportsmanship rituals. The supporters groups kept chanting away for their men in green or their men in red.
My section at Full Time.
The Masthead 