Day -573. WorldCup2018
After the relative non-excitement of the break from domestic leagues
for the latest round of World Cup qualifiers it's back to the increasing
flatness of the English Premier League. Yes, there is a lot more
football happening in the world but since I can't be anywhere else I
enjoy, to a certain point, the convenience of a number of Premier league
matches on TV on a Saturday morning.
I posted an excellent
article in The Guardian a couple of days ago about the decreasing
atmosphere inside English stadiums, at least in the Premier League. And
it comes across on TV. As I watch, and marvel at the silence, I have
often wondered how many of those fans in the stadium can afford to be
there week after week. And that was one of the reasons mentioned in this
story- the changing clientele at football matches, who aren’t there to
sing but to be entertained by the millionaires that they are watching.
And most of them are on their phones anyway, posting live updates on
social media. So how can they be doing two things at once? Actually that
would be three: tweeting about the personal hygiene of the person next
to them, singing a song about the not-so wonderful attributes of the
city/town/village that the other team represents, and watching the
match.
On Tuesday, Toronto FC play the first leg of the MLS
Eastern Conference final in Montreal. This, and the return leg, in
Toronto the following week will probably be the most passionate
atmosphere I have watched on TV this season. At least since the Northern
Irish fans sang non-stop about a player who never played a minute of
football for his country at Euro 2016.
Montreal chose to host the
first leg in the city's Olympic Stadium, built for the 1976 Olympics.
Not only have they sold the capacity 60,000 seats they will also be
playing indoor. The outcome will be a cracking atmosphere and happily
warm supporters. The return match will be outdoors, (brrrr!) and has
been a 30.000 sell-out for a while. The demand is so great that TFC are
putting an additional 6,000 seats on sale. These are in an additional,
temporary stand at one end of the stadium built for the hosting of the
Canadian Football League final. For the non-Canadians reading this the
CFL is the NFL of Canada, kind of- American football as we Europeans
know it but the Canadian way, with a few different rules (don't ask,
google knows more than me) and a bunch of players who couldn’t quite
make it in the NFL.
The atmosphere in these two matches, and I
like to believe especially in the Toronto match, will put the Etihad and
Emirates to shame. I used to be a football-in-North America snob. When
TFC started I admit I was amused by what I perceived as try hard fans
wanting to be like the supporters they saw on TV. And they did borrow a
lot of chants from Europe and South America. But they did develop a
strong culture of their own and there is one very noticeable about all
the supporter groups behind the one goal: they never stop, for the whole
match.
While the TFC fans were commended for their incredible
support in the last home match against New York, there was a more
amusing start to their notoriety as a passionate group of supporters.
Their first ever goal in their first ever home match was scored by Danny
Dichio in the 24th minute. To this day Dichio is still serenaded in the
24th minute of every TFC match. The fans celebrated the historic moment
on that day nine years ago not by invading the pitch or setting off
fireworks. No, they threw their plastic cushions, handed out at the
start, onto the pitch. Excuse the shaky video but see how it was not one
or two cushions but a right old deluge of them. The league were not
happy about the upstart Canadian team's supporters having some fun. But
it did set the standard for how much their fans would get behind their
team.
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